


now it's dark

by nirvhannahcornell (josiebelladonna)



Series: now it's dark [1]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom, Metallica, Rock Music RPF, Soundgarden (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Noir, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Blink And You Miss It Slash, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Cyberpunk, Dark Comedy, Dark Fantasy, Dark Magic, F/M, Gothic, Heavy Metal, Late Night Writing, Multi, National Novel Writing Month, New Orleans, New York, POV First Person, Science Fiction, Seattle, Southern Gothic, Steampunk, pacific northwest gothic, the grunge scene, you might want to dress warm you will feel cold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2020-12-17 04:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 43
Words: 97,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21048200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell
Summary: *book one*Joey hasn't always had it easy. Fresh off the boat from his singing duties in Anthrax, he finds a battered young woman in a storm drain. After taking her to shelter, he runs into a gentleman named Lars Ulrich, whom, as he finds out knows a thing or two about the woman in question. Thus ensues two fellows' journey through hell and back again.





	1. (the girl in the gutter)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic asks "what if Joey had been fired from Anthrax following the release of State of Euphoria instead of Persistence of Time?" It also emerges out of the ashes of Equestrians and an original novel I had scrapped last fall called Dead Pets. Arguably the follow up to Painted in a Corner, given it takes place three years prior to the events of that one, and one year after Have Your Cake and Eat It.  
Originally titled "after the watershed", this bad boy is also available on Tumblr (joeyandlarssgarden) and on my Wattpad. And yes, I am writing this for NaNoWriMo this year!
> 
> “White on white translucent black capes, back on the rack.  
Bela Lugosi's dead.  
The bats have left the bell tower, the victims have been bled.  
Red velvet lines the black box... Bela Lugosi's dead.”  
-”Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, Bauhaus

October 12, 1988. Oswego, New York.

“Kill me now,” is what I say as I stare out the window.  
The rain is my one true friend now. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make a good friend on top of this--I’m sure everyone knows about it, the whole thing where if someone, and by someone I mean myself, wasn’t en route to a college or a university, or working a job already, they were kind of left out in the cold. Sure, there have been plenty of acquaintances, but as far as someone I could sit with and feel myself to be true with them, it’s been a while. The whole twisted thing about everything that happened was that it happened so quick. It was four years ago Scott and Frank told me I could hold the microphone in my hand. Four years ago, and last year we may as well have hiked up to the North Pole and stood up a big black flag with the word “NOT!” emblazoned on it, beholding the fact we had conquered the world in the wake of Cliff’s ashes. We rose up like the phoenix, and I was the man on fire.  
There is absolutely nothing like standing out in the rain with all of your things taken out from the studio, slung over your shoulder, and your old band mates were the ones throwing you out there into the darkness while the gutters overflow over your head. There isn’t a feeling like it.  
And if anyone believes that I had had enough, know for a fact I was asked to leave. I had vowed to rid of the problem, to replace all of the booze with black coffee. I mean, Jesus, I like to have fun with this sort of thing. What’s the point of doing it if I’m not going to have a little fun with it all every now and then? And it’s not like I was drinking a ton so to speak--at least I wasn’t doing those drug loaded pirate raids the four of them would do with Skid Row and Ratt. But I specifically recall telling Scott, verbatim, after he threatened to leave if I did nothing, that I would not have a sip of alcohol as long as I was a member of the band. And yet, for whatever reason, that promise did not suffice or click with any of them.  
I think the sound of my phone ringing this morning and waking me up will haunt me for as long as I live. I still hear Jonny’s voice on the other end, telling me it was official. They had made the decision behind closed doors and I had been thrown out on my ass as of that morning, but he never elaborated why.  
The next thing I remember was asking him why and the sound of the other end hanging up. No, Jonny, come back. Come back!  
Fuck.  
I lay there for a minute on my recliner before I even hung up the phone myself. I just reposed with the mouthpiece of the phone pressed to the side of my face, and the cord laying on my neck while I heard the drone of the dial tone right in my ear. They were like my friends, my first friends in a long time following high school, and yet they still showed their dark face to me. Something told me I stood at fault.  
It was my fault. It was my fault the band was in turmoil and Frankie and Charlie had that massive blow up that day. It was my fault the new album coasted on the success of Among the Living. It was all my fault.  
Once I hung up the phone, I could only crawl back into bed. I only did it for a bit because I refused to mope and wallow in my misery. Even as I took a walk outside, jacket zipped up and hands in my pockets, struggling to hold my head up high even though I sustained a huge punch in the stomach and slap in the face, within time, the lake began weeping with me. There’s a trail that runs along the water’s edge and when I’m in a depressive mood such as this, I take a walk along the soft earth there--I’m half Indian, I feel the cold earth deep within my soul. It’s a part of me. It’s my heart.  
Since it’s October, and the eve of my twenty-eighth birthday, the lake effect makes its way here, and often when I least expect it.  
At one point during my walk, I noticed those feathery plumes emerging from the top of the water. I could feel the cold wind running through my hair and upon the crown of my head. I had to stop in place right next to boulder twice as large as me to better feel the cold. I had faith they were the act for me, such that I felt it in my bones. There’s nothing like this very feeling here.  
They say someone is most themselves when they’re alone. Well, if the tears welling up in my eyes due in part to the pain in my chest or the incoming frigid rain should note anything, it’s that I’m alone.  
When I came back to my apartment, I crawled inside of my own kitchen and a tiny box of Mike n Ikes for a bit. It’s not enough. A hollow skinny man needs to be filled up again. Maybe when the rain clears up a bit I’ll walk down to the Bitters for a cup and something of substance—a cup of Joey rather. It is a few hours before I turn twenty-eight, after all.  
Twenty-eight years old. I joined Anthrax when I was twenty-three. It feels like a thousand years ago.  
If there’s anything my mom taught me it’s to not bar grudges, though. No. I’m not like that. I don’t want to be like that. The very thought of such a thing nauseates me and leaves me feeling nothing more than disgusted with myself.  
Oh... my mom. The very thought of her eases the pain and warms me up from within. It’s like eating soup on a freezing day: the room may be cold but the belly’s warm and that’s all that matters.  
She and my dad are out of town right now, and I have no way of telling them I was fired because I don’t know if they left their hotel and are on the road at the moment, or not.  
Twenty-eight years old and I’m spending it by myself. I live alone. I’m sitting here on my window sill looking out to the courtyard down below and watching the rain streak down the window pane. I feel the earth in my soul and she’s crying for me.  
I don’t think this rain will let up any time soon and this candy is doing nothing. It’s not soup. And so I get up and head into my room for a change of the clothes and a warmer jacket: yeah, I should probably get out of this pajama shirt.  
I’m taking my clothes off and out of the corner of my eye, I see my reflection in the mirror on my closet door. I’m standing there in the middle of my room in my underwear and holding a pair of jeans by the waistband, and I so happen to see this scrawny young guy staring back at me.  
Not even a few hours after my release and I can see I’m wasting away, turning into nothing more than a skinny little sack of bones. My stomach is so slim, it’s like the top of a table. No, it’s like a broken, caved in surface of a table. I touch my skin, which is like touching a soft thin layer of cotton piled up on hard plywood. I need to eat something. No drinks, though: I’m not that cowardly.  
I put my pants on and, once I’m zipped up, I run my fingers over my waist again. So thin.  
Funny, it wasn’t more than a couple of years ago when we were in that warehouse filming the video for “Madhouse,” and I could look at my own face in the mirror across from me and feel like I had a lot going for me. I had a baby face, all round and sweet with these brown eyes and all of this black hair piled about my head, all of it as tightly coiled and coarse as the mane of a horse, and some of it springing up over the crown of my head. Now, I look like I aged about twenty years in no more than thirteen months. One of the many problems of being indigenous: I’m still just a young buck but I look like a senior with my skin sinking in and forming these odd lines. The fact I’m as skinny as I am adds to it.  
I don’t feel like putting a shirt on. I changed out of my shirt for no shirt, how ‘bout that! So I put on my sweater over my body instead followed by my leather jacket. I’ve got this down.  
I leave the apartment with the keys in my pocket and the hood pulled over my head, the sweater under my black leather, and my hands in the upholstered pockets. Even though there are clouds blanketing the sky overhead, I can tell the sun is setting and the light is fading. It’s a bit of a walk down to the Bitters but I’m hungry enough—I can walk there in time to get some food in my stomach and then boogie back with the last bus ride back to the complex.  
Until then, I’m the man in black on this chilly evening, the tall wiry shadow making serious headway two and a half miles down the road. I have my head bowed to keep the rain out of my eyes. Maybe if I got the hell out of this town and wormed my way into the city like the little parasite that I am, Scott and the boys will take me back. I was the strange one after all: Scott and Danny had wives, Charlie and Frankie had girlfriends, whereas I went home alone. They were the essence of the city, I stood there pulling corn kernels out of my teeth. But on the other hand, out here in the sticks, I have no doubt this is home. It may not seem like much and there is a lot of bullshit to go about especially if it’s not living up near the colleges where my complex is, but for me, it’s home. I was born here, my parents live here, and my grandparents are buried in the cemetery.  
I reach the corner and I feel the candy having not done enough for me. I can’t make it to the Bitters like this with my own stomach eating away at me.  
I stop in place to catch my breath. I can’t do it. I need to get on the bus.  
I glance to my right at the sight of the bus stop itself on the sidewalk up ahead and I take that opportunity; once I reach that glass case, I have both hands resting on my belly, I am absolutely starving.  
It takes my boarding the bus and taking the seat next to a woman with long dark hair and wrapped in a raincoat when I realize this thing is taking me all the way out to the golf course and the country club. Oh God.  
My stomach is killing me, and it only gets worse with the woman next to me stepping off before the interchange onto the highway. I have my back against the wall and my hands all the way into pockets, and my fingers up against my belly. The one thing separating me from my own skin is a small piece of flannel. I’m losing it, that is if I haven’t already lost it.  
I’m watching the lights from the wharf illuminate the clouds overhead with the color of an orange creamsicle. The hunger and the candy having done enough is killing me. The country club is this way, and I think there’s also a bar nearby. Not that I want a drink but it’s one thing to bear in mind. Once we lumber closer to those low lights springing out of the darkness, I ring the bell over my head.  
Even with the lights glowing out from the wharf, I can see the lake effect further taking place right now, which means I need to get a move on to shelter. This rain is already ridiculous and my pants are getting wet. I have my head bowed to keep the rain out of my eyes, but even that’s not enough. I’ve got an ache in my belly and I’m cold, but I’m not too far.  
I feel a chill run up my spine and then bring my arms closer to my body. That bar is here somewhere, but where? The chill is growing worse and no matter what I do, I continue to feel cold. Where the hell is it?  
I stop when I notice the figure in black, full in the middle and taking the shape of an hourglass, and with nothing more than a wispy cloud over its head. My skin is practically crawling at this point from the rain, which I feel will turn into snow at any given moment, and it’s only made colder by the sight of her, the sight of Death. She points a skeleton hand at me, stopping me dead in my tracks.  
“Are you dead?” she asks in a voice that sounds like it’s about a mile away on the shores of Lake Ontario.  
“N-No,” I stammer out, although I feel like I could be dead given my friends shut me out, my stomach is in agony, and the impending snow might freeze me above anything else.  
“You must be on your way,” she retorts.  
“I swear to you—my hand on my grandfather’s ashes—that I am not dead.”  
“What’s your name, then?”  
“Joseph Anthony Bellardini.” My voice is strong despite the incessant shivering. “But call me Joey Belladonna.”  
I watch her fade out into the shadows and the cluster of spruces, bones and everything, like she never existed. I stand there, my hands crammed into my pockets and my teeth chattering like crazy. Was that Death? And if it was, does that mean I can go where it’s warm? And I still haven’t found the entrance to the country club, much less the bar.  
A noise catches my ear. It’s dark except for the glow of the harbor lights and the stupid power plant over in the hills; but I look about the street until I spot the faint silhouette of a woman sprawled over the edge of the sidewalk. I look around and I can see I'm the only other person to be seen here.  
I tug on the edge of the hood and run up the wet concrete. The snow is upon us, and running up the sidewalk in Chucks is dangerous, but I know for a fact there’s no one else around. I can see her face and once she comes within my line of sight, I can see the rope tied about her ankles. Once I reach her, I take a look into her rounded pale face and her black hair. She looks familiar...  
It takes me a minute to see it’s the woman next to me on the bus. How’d she get here? I set one knee down next to her on the wet sidewalk, which soaks my jeans even more, but that’s the least of my problems right now.  
“Hey! Hey, are you okay?” I ask her in a gentle voice. I reach for her face to look right at her.  
“Are you okay?” I repeat. In the dim light, I see her part her lips but she never opens her eyes for me.  
“He—Help—”  
“It’s alright—it’s alright.”  
“Help me—″ she sputters. I hear her groan in her throat and I knew something had happened that had to do with Death back there. The rain is relentless and my body is aching from cold and hunger but I know the club and the bar are not too far from here. I put my arms around her: she’s heavy! And the rope around her ankles only makes it harder for me. But I lean her head and shoulders against my chest, and once I stand to my feet, I clasp her to my chest with my right hand and brush her wet hair from her eyes to examine her face with my left. Even in the darkness, I can tell she’s gorgeous.  
I glance around the block until I spot something on the other side of the street, like tucked behind something else. That’s either the bar or something else.  
“Come on—come with me,” I coax her gently as I scoop her off of the sidewalk: my aching belly pains me even more, but I need to help this poor lady. “It’s okay—I’ve got you.” I adjust myself so that I can carry her without my back hurting on top of everything else.  
“I'll take you where it’s warm,” I promise to her over the roar of the rain.  
“Please—” her voice slips out from her lips like a piece of wind; “don’t hurt—me—”  
“I won’t. I won’t, I promise.” I hold her close to me as I guide her down the sidewalk: it’s tricky because of the rope but I don’t think I have my pocket knife with me.  
God dammit.  
I reach the corner and I stop to move the hair from her face again. The light is a little better and as a result, I make out a narrow dark crease the length of my pinkie finger on her forehead. Whoever left her there must have left her there to die, hence my encounter with Death.  
“What’s your name?” I ask her as the rain patters even harder around us. Even though I have her head against my chest, I smooth her hair back from her face even more. I just have the glow from the lights of the club nearby as my guide, but I can look right into her face. “What’s your name?”  
“Maya,” she almost breathes it, her lips parted not even by a hair.  
“Maya?” I repeat it because everything is so loud.  
“Yes--” She’s fading fast. I slide my other arm under her thighs to better carry her. The dead weight of her body pulls me down like an anchor. I’ll starve to death before I let this woman die out here in the cold and wet.  
“Okay, Maya. I’m Joey. Let’s go where it’s warm.” And without another word, I run across the grass to that little building tucked out of sight. I hope it’s the bar and not something else.


	2. (black orchid)

My stomach is in complete and utter agony once she and I arrive at the doorstep: my hair is drenched and I’m freezing from the cold rain falling all around us. In the dim light, I can see her eyes struggling to remain open, but I made a promise with myself. The grass is starting to feel like a swamp, and I can tell the rain is making the leather rather slippery: I am almost dragging her once I stumble onto the concrete walkway.  
I stop to push my hair out of my eyes to make out the shape of... a flower? I can’t tell.  
I push my hair from my eyes again all while trying to keep her from sliding out from my arms. It’s like a neon light in the shape of a flower but I can’t be too sure of it.  
What the hell is this place?  
I hurry up to the doorstep, where I am met with a low awning: I duck my head and, once the rain is behind me and Maya, I give my head a toss back to rid of the wet strands of hair from my face.  
Maya groans in her throat and shudders against my chest.  
“Come on, Maya, babe, stay with me—“ I coax her, running her up to the front door. I press her head to my chest but since the leather on my jacket is too drenched, I have to lean back a bit to keep her from falling onto the hard ground. I try to knock on the dark heavy door panel but I can’t, otherwise I drop her.  
So I kick the door with the sole of my shoe. No response. I’m about to do it again when this foxy girl sidles out from behind the darkness. Yellow light shines over Maya and me, and I blink several times to adjust my eyes.  
She’s about a foot shorter than me with short scarlet red ringlets around her head and bright green eyes, and she has opaque skin as white as the impending snow, and as smooth as glass. She’s wearing a fitted black leather jacket zipped down to the base of her chest, a black miniskirt, and is barefoot. She gives her ringlets a toss back and flutters her eyelash extensions at me.  
“Hey, handsome, what brings you to our little hub in the nub of New York?”  
“Probably hypothermic, and starving, and I think something horrific happened to her,” I say in one fell swoop and a nod to Maya, and she gasps at the sight of her there in my arms.  
“Oh holy shit!” She turns away from the door. “Lili! Lili, come quick!”  
She returns to me.  
“Yeah, come inside, come inside,” she encourages me.  
I almost stumble ass over teakettle into the room from the wet soles of my Chucks, but I never let go of her. The girl gestures for me to bring Maya to a plush dark red couch nestled up against the wall, and I stagger forth a bit, but I catch myself in the moment. I lay her down on the cushions and I collapse right there on the soft shag carpet beneath her.  
“Oh my God,” the girl pleads, clasping a hand to her mouth. A heavier woman with jet black hair tied tight in a bun atop her head skids into the room from the stairwell across from me.  
“Morgan, what have I told you about calling me Lili?” she scolds her.  
Morgan scoffs; meanwhile I can hardly lift up my head. Now I am starting to fade.  
“Mrs. Hamilton, this guy and his girl here are—“ I couldn’t hear the rest of it. My vision blurs and falls out of focus as they fade out into silhouettes, both of which loom towards me.  
I can feel them touching me and picking me up from the floor. Morgan sits me upright: I already know her fiery red hair through my hazy vision.  
“—he said he’s hungry,” I hear her say: her voice sounds like she’s about a mile away.  
“I bet he’s cold, too—“ adds Mrs. Hamilton. Her blurred silhouette turns away. “Cindy, go upstairs—”  
My head rolls over onto my shoulder and I close my eyes. Like going to sleep.  
And then I wake up to the heavy horse blanket wrapped around me and a whole group of girls, including Morgan and Mrs. Hamilton, gathered around me. The latter, who’s snuggled closest to me, brushes my hair from my face.  
“There he is,” declares the black girl with the fledgling Afro to the right of me.  
“Hey, hon,” she greets me in a Pennsylvania Dutch accent, “don’t scare us like that. We were kinda worrying about you there for a minute.” She hands me a large bluish white bowl of what looks like chicken noodle soup accompanied with a light silver spoon.  
“You just make yourself at home here with us for a little bit,” the dishwater blonde across from me tells me.  
“We’ll take good care of you,” promises the brown haired girl next to her, “—and her.”  
I turn my head to make sure Maya is still laying behind me on the couch: they had removed her shoes and socks, and I could only see the tiny white stubs for feet jutting out from her slacks.  
“Yeah, I hope she’s alright,” I confess, returning to the bowl in my lap.  
I cannot seem to get the noodles and the chicken into my mouth faster as I almost inhale the first several bites of soup before me. I don’t even care if I dribble a little onto my shirt: I just want it inside of me.  
“My goodness,” remarks Mrs. Hamilton, “poor thing, you must have been starving to death!”  
“I pretty much was,” I confess, lifting my head to take a better look at her voluptuous figure. She’s a bit too old for me but I do like what I am seeing underneath that lush blanket brocade.  
“I’m Leela, or Mrs. Hamilton. Only the select few call me Lili or Leah.”  
“And by select few, you mean family and anyone who kisses your ass,” Morgan grumbles under her breath.  
“Oh, stop,” Mrs. Hamilton scolds her, “obviously you met Morgan—that’s the Jackson girls, Lupe—“ She gestures to the brown haired girl who shows me a dainty little wave, “Louise, or Louie Louie as we call her—“ the dishwater blonde who blows me a kiss, “—Lizzy—“ the black haired girl with a silver nose ring and tattoos of Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit on her shoulder who shows me a warm smile and flutters her lashes at me, “—and my daughters Cindy, who made the soup—“ the girl with feathery black hair and big sensual lips winks at me, “—and Gwendolyn.” The black girl to the right of me: and I tilt my head to the side at her.  
“You’re her sister?”  
“Half sister,” she elaborates. “Mr. Hamilton is my dad, but Cindy and I go by her maiden name.”  
“Ridgeway,” says Cindy with a shy smile. I show her a sly grin as I pick up the spoon again.  
“And do you have a name?” asks Lizzy.  
“I’m Joey,” I introduce myself. “Joey Belladonna.”  
“Ahh, we’ve got an Italian Stallion with us, girls,” declares Gwendolyn with a twinkle in her eye.  
“Well, I dunno about that,” I shrug off, feeling the warmth return to my skin.  
“Oh, come on, baby boy.” A devilish grin crosses her lovely face. “You’re as hot as the sun on the coast of Tuscany.”  
“Oh, yeah, sis,” Cindy chimes in, leaning towards me, “you’re quite the—lush one, aren’t you?”  
“Well, I’m also Native American, too,” I add, taking another bite of soup.  
They all let out an eager gasp in unison and I am starting to feel better at that point.  
“What—is this place, might I ask?” I lower my voice towards Mrs. Hamilton.  
“Black Orchid,” she replies with a grin. “The finest, classiest, sexiest club outside of New York City.”  
I swallow down another bite of soup before I understand what she’s talking about.  
“Club,” I breathe out, feeling my heart skip a few beats, “I came to a strip club.”  
“That’s right, baby doll,” Louie declares, and Lupe and Morgan giggle with each other. “We all were just headed home for the night because of the rain when you showed up.”  
“Don’t tell us that’s your lady, though,” Cindy nods at Maya with an almost wounded look upon her face.  
“Oh, no,” I assure her. “I was taking a walk when I found her in a storm drain bound at the ankles, and I wasn’t gonna let her die there.”  
“Sexy as hell and a sweetheart,” Gwendolyn notes, her cheekbones filling out to resemble ripe plums.  
“Em—well, if you ladies were headed home—and hopefully the rain’s died down, sounds like it has—”  
“It’s snowing now, hon,” Mrs. Hamilton corrects me.  
“It is? Well, fuck.”  
“Slumber party!” Lizzy squeals, and I long for my bed right then and there. I have always loved falling asleep with my gullet full of food and in my own bed. But on the other hand, I suppose it is best if I do stay here for the night.  
“I forgot to add, tomorrow’s my birthday,” I add and Mrs. Hamilton’s face lights up at the sound of that.  
“Well, I’ll be screwed, blued, and tattooed—alright, girls! We’ve got all the more reason to spend the night. We’ve gotta do more than take care of this boy and help this young lady—we’ve got a birthday to plan!”  
“I’ll get the cake!” Lizzy offers.  
“I’ll help,” Morgan joins her.  
“Gwen and I’ll find him a bed,” Cindy joins in, climbing to her feet.  
“Louie and I’ll figure out what’s for breakfast,” Lupe proclaims with a wink at me.  
“And I’ll get some beer,” Mrs. Hamilton says, rubbing her hands together.  
Meanwhile, I return to my bowl of soup, which is quite big but I really don’t mind. I’d rather go to bed with my belly all warm than have every inch of me shuddering from that box of Mike n Ikes and melancholy. I take another bite before turning my head again to see her bare feet at the end of the couch.  
It goes without saying that Maya and I are in good hands.


	3. (the loft)

“Right this way, Joey.”  
Cindy and Gwendolyn lead me up the smooth stone stairs to the second floor: the stairwell itself smells of an odd combination of something along the lines of mint, baby powder, perfume, and half of a bottle of Jack. Cindy lingers above me while Gwendolyn ascends the stairs before us; she turns around to show me a warm welcoming smile. I notice that when she smiles, she gets these round little apple cheeks that just look soft and luscious.  
I peer over my shoulder to the sight of Maya there on the couch one last time before she vanishes behind the edge of the ceiling. I know she’ll be fine laying there but I can’t help but feel like I failed, like I was supposed to save her. Death was standing right there when I found her, so what that tells me is she was going to die right there on the sidewalk and I just happened to be there. I was supposed to save her and yet, I collapsed and passed out before I could even tell Morgan or Mrs. Hamilton her name.  
I return to the two girls bringing me to the second level, which smells even more like baby powder but there’s a bit of incense mixed in there. Gwendolyn pokes her head up from the stairwell first, followed by Cindy and then myself. I feel my head spin a little bit and my stomach ache from the sensation: I either ate too much or stood up too fast.  
But I look around the floor at the sight of the lush couches arranged in a semicircle around a dance floor and a pair of poles. Over our heads is a balcony lined with a spindly iron banister and what looks like a loft of some sort.  
“Is that where I’m sleeping?” I ask Cindy, pointing up to the balcony.  
“Right up there, yes sir-ee,” she answers. My head still spins as they lead up another flight of stairs: such a fair sized strip club for that doesn’t look so big on the outside. Or maybe it is, it was too dark out, whatever.  
We reach the top of the stairs and I spot the two large soft looking beds with the headboards pushed up against the wall. Right in front of me stands a skinny dark wooden chair, something perfect for hanging up my coat given I don’t see a closet here. I want to take off my wet clothes and then lay down on the one on the right and fall asleep right there: I’m so full and so exhausted from earlier.  
“So do I pick either one or—?” I ask the two of them.  
“Of course, baby doll,” Gwendolyn replies with a slight smirk on her face. Cindy meanwhile rolls her eyes at that notion before she holds out her arms.  
“But anyway, this is the loft,” she announces to me. “But I don’t know if there are any extra blankets on either of these beds, given it’s so cold right now. Hang tight—“  
She ducks back out of the loft and back down the stairs. I turn back to Gwendolyn, who’s still showing me that devilish little smirk.  
“Do you mind if I take off my clothes?” I ask her.  
“Not at all,” she consoles me, her expression never changing. I turn away from her just enough to keep the button of my jeans out her sight. I peel off my jacket and lay it over the top of the chair; I’m a little wary of removing my shirt in front of her, or even undoing my jeans. And so I have a seat in the chair to untie my shoes.  
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her watching me with intent. Once my feet are totally exposed, I bring my attention to her arms folded over her chest and her hip cocked out to emphasize her figure. I stand up in front of her and hold onto the bottom of my shirt, but I don’t take it off. She licks her lips as she sashays towards me. I let go of the hem of my shirt as she looms in closer to my face.  
“Can I—” I start, and feel my throat subsequently tighten up. I swallow but it does nothing. “—can I help you?”  
“You’re so sexy, Joe,” she whispers to me, “like you’re hot. I wanna just—oh, I dunno.”  
“What?” All of a sudden I’m thirsty.  
Her tongue runs along her bottom lip.  
“—give you a good hearty blow.”  
I raise my eyebrows at her.  
“If you blow my candles out, could I perhaps touch your titties later on?”  
She runs her tongue over her bottom lip as she moves in closer to me. Her hand hovers over my chest but she doesn’t touch me.  
“Mmm... if you want, baby boy,” her voice is low and throaty. “Although I just might... give you little spankin’ if you do, though.” This is when she sets her hand on my chest and caresses up to my collar. Her touch is quite nice but I have to confess that I don’t feel like having a lap dance at the moment. I saved a woman from freezing to death and I have a belly full of soup: I don’t feel up to anything other than crawling underneath those covers and falling asleep. But Gwendolyn is quite the comely woman, and she knows how to get around with words. God.  
I let her feel me up and slip in closer to my chest. I can smell her perfume, as cheap as it is, and yet so comforting and intoxicating. Her hand drifts back down onto my stomach; at the same time her lips part in front of my face. I relax every inch of my body as she looms in closer to my mouth. I’m weak at the knees. Her lips brush onto my skin when Cindy’s voice floats up the stairs.  
Gwendolyn moves her head back to stare at me, right in the eye, those dark burning into me like cigarettes. I examine more closely at a fistful of golden stardust interwoven in the roots of her nappy black hair, those glimmers sparkling about in the faint light. But she flashes me a wink and a pucker of the lips one last time before Cindy returns within earshot and with a bundle of fabric.  
“Here, Joey.” She hands me the heavy red and white blanket on top. “I’ll put this one on the other bed, whichever one you don’t choose.”  
“And who’s gonna sleep in the other bed?” I ask her.  
“The girl downstairs,” she tells me, “unless Gwen here wants to bunk with you.”  
“Nahhh—” Gwendolyn flashes me another wink, and then turns around, and heads for the stairwell. With every step she takes, her hips gyrate to and fro, and I have to look over at Cindy and the other blanket in her arms.  
“So she’ll be up here, too?” I repeat it.  
“Yeah. She’s stirred when I went down there so I’m going to try and get her up here.”  
“So—” I shift my weight and lay the blanket on the top of the bed behind me. “—I can just call it a night and you can take care of her?”  
“Of course. Your belly’s full and I can tell you’re tired. I’ve got it, Joey. I promise.”  
I nibble on my bottom lip and this is when the fatigue sets into me. I am tired.  
And I nod my head and run a hand through my hair. Her cherry lips curl up into a warm smile.  
“So sleep tight,” she says in a low voice, and she wheels around and heads for the stairs. Once I am alone, I strip off my shirt and lay it in the seat of the chair. I run my hand down my chest and onto my stomach, and the cold pervading the loft coaxes some goose pimples out of my skin. I undo the button on my jeans. I let them drop to the floor and climb onto the bed: the mattress is like crawling on a pile of pillows. When I reach the headboard, I slip my legs under the covers, and lay my head on the soft pillow, and tug the blankets up to my chin. I roll onto my side and drift off within time.


	4. (the strange girl)

I hope it’s nothing more to do for me to sit upright and feel the warmth of the black hole on my face. I can’t seem to feel anything else around me other than the warmth and dead weight of the heavy gravity pulling me to the side. How did I get here?  
I have never valued my own flesh more until now.  
The hole looms above my body as it drags me inside of it.  
No. No. I can’t let you win. Not this time. Not here, not now.  
I feel my hair drifting back from my head.  
Someone help me. Someone help me please!  
I feel myself bleeding from the immense weight. I need my hover board—where the hell is it? No. Don’t tell me the hole sucked it up like a fucking vacuum cleaner. I don’t wanna die—no. No! I’m too young to die!  
Mom! Mom!  
I fall face first into the cobwebs. I lift my head right as I feel my feet and my legs tugging back from me at the speed of nothing. I clamber onto the webs so as to get away from the hole but I can already feel myself being made into spaghetti. When I said “kill me now” that time, I didn’t mean it like this!  
I claw at the cobwebs to try and keep myself on the ground, but I can’t tell where is the ground.  
I peer down the hole in between cobwebs to find something moving down there. A snake?  
The black hole has a death grip on me but I persist. I can’t let it win. God, I can’t believe I am actually being pulled apart.  
The thing down the cobwebs wriggles closer to my face. It’s not a snake.  
Their eight legs crawl out from the interior of the webs. There must be dozens of them, each of them creeping up from the darkness up onto my face.  
I’m being pulled apart. And I can’t scream, or breathe.  
I open my eyes to the sight of the dark loft wall before me. I roll onto my back part of the way to look up at the dark ceiling. I sigh through my parted lips.  
Just a dream, and the result of my not having my dream catcher with me. No black holes, no spiders crawling up my upper body and poisoning me with their venom. I hope the Man in Black didn’t follow me out here from the complex just to freak me out like that.  
I reach up from underneath the warm blankets to feel my face. My skin is cold: I tug the covers up over my head and I find myself enveloped inside of a dark, warm cocoon. I bring my knees up a bit to feel even cozier, and I bring my arms against my stomach to feel the softness of my skin. I’m still full from that lovely soup Cindy made for me, and I’m still quite comfortable. It’s not my own bed but it’ll do the trick for me for the time being.  
It’s times like this when I feel most myself. I’m a soft kind of guy. Not soft like my dad or my grandpa, but the fact I’m a hockey player and yet I have never lost a bit of that gentle feeling to my flesh, and all I want to do is cuddle with something, or someone. Nah, something. I don’t feel like holding another body.  
I keep my eyes closed in an attempt to return to sleep but all I can think about is that woman, that girl laying in the bed next to me. I listen to her heavy breathing as it cuts through the silence right then. I try to sing “Oh, Sherrie” to myself but I’m too exhausted to think of the melody. I also cannot think of that song without thinking of Anthrax, either. I sang that song for Scott and Frankie on that day, and now I’m back to square one.  
I roll onto my back but I never open my eyes. I can still hear her breathing heavy in the bed next to me. What was her name again? Maisie? Mabel? I only remember the first two letters. Ugh.  
I roll my head over the plush pillow underneath my head and keep my hands atop my chest. I stretch out my legs and try to relax underneath the warm covers but can’t. This woman next to me is driving me crazy.  
I push the covers back from my face only to be greeted by the cold air hanging over me there in the room. I gaze up at the darkness around me. At least there aren’t any ghosts here in Black Orchid.  
I roll my head over the pillow and, in the dim light, I make out the sight of her silhouette laying on the edge of the bed next to me. Cindy and Mrs. Hamilton must have lay her there without trying to wake me. I need answers from her but I also don’t want to wake her. If nothing, I can create a distraction of some sort so it looks like I woke her on accident. I sit upright in the bed and slide my legs out from underneath the covers: the floor feels like ice underneath my bare feet; meanwhile the cold air in the loft sends a wave of chills over the bare skin on my chest. Everything is still dark, but I can make out the first rays of daybreak filtering in through the window on the other side of the room. But at the same time, I can’t remember if there are things on the floor before me or not.  
But before I can do anything else, she stirs right there in the bed before me. I freeze in place at the sound of the blankets rustling. I rub my eyes in time to make out the sight of her rolling over onto her back. I don’t move as I watch her sit upright and stand to her feet in front of me. She presses her body right up against me: the crown of her head reaches the base of my chest. She runs her hands up my sides and feels me up. I wonder if she’s still asleep.  
“Hey,” I whisper to her. She stops right in place. I can see her eyelids fluttering and she gasps at the sight of me.  
“Oh—Oh, my God,” she speaks with a soft voice and a heavy, distinctive British accent. “What was I doing?”  
“I was getting up for a moment,” I start; she hasn’t lowered her hands from my sides yet; “and then you stood up in front of me and started touching me.”  
“Oh, dear—forgive me, love. I have such a dreadful habit of… sleepwalking. My mind is so active that I can’t—” Her voice trails off. I see her staring at me right in the face; I can feel her breath on my chin.  
“—help it.”  
I make out the dark shapes of her eyes dropping their gaze down to my waist, and then the whole rest of my body. With the incoming morning light, I watch her lips drop open at the sight of my legs; then she returns her gaze to my face. She lifts one hand from my side and slips her fingers into my hair, right at the base of my head.  
“You are so—exquisite,” she remarks, her voice trembling.  
“What do you mean?” I ask her as her fingers entwine around the ringlets at the back of my head. Her eyes glean over my face before locking onto my eyes, staring back at me against the milky faint light of the rising sun.  
“Silky and—gorgeous, actually. Precious, in fact. You’re beautiful. You have to be the most beautiful man in the world. Your skin is flawless, your hair is soft and lush, your body is so slim and so delicate, and your eyes are so—so—so lovely. I’m getting weak just looking at you…”  
Her voice breaks and she collapses right into my chest: she yanks on my hair all the while. But I manage to catch her with my body and clasp onto her before she can fall onto the floor like a rag doll. I stagger forward to catch myself, and I push forward to ultimately bring her back to her bed. I fall onto my hip while keeping her in my arms, and then I let go of her. She falls onto her back which allows several strands of her wavy dark hair to span over her face. Her words ring through my mind—me, the most beautiful man in the world. I don’t know how to react to that. I flash back on last night with Gwendolyn calling me sexy and almost kissing me; right then, the girl’s head rolls over on the comforter to face me, but she doesn’t open her eyes.  
“You saved me again,” she breathes out from partially parted lips. I shift around on the top of the comforter for a better look at her face and neck. Wow, and I thought I was thin: the skin under her jaw is taut, thus giving rise to the bone. I hope either Mrs. Hamilton or Cindy, one of the ladies downstairs, will wake up soon so we can have breakfast, she must be hungry.  
And then I remember the date. I lean over her face with one hand planted on the other side of her head. Not once does she open her eyes for me.  
“Hey,” I whisper to her.  
“Yes?” She almost sighs the word.  
“Today’s my birthday.”  
She cracks a smile at me as her head rolls in the opposite direction.  
“Happy birthday, beautiful boy,” her voice slurs and I know she’s falling back to sleep. And I still can’t recall her name.  
Oh well.   
I run my fingers through my hair and give it a slight toss before I make a return to my bed. I crawl back underneath the covers, which are still warm, and lay on my side. I nestle down inside of the soft mattress and the soft pillow underneath my head. I can’t stop thinking about her touching me, and her touch on my chest and the back of my head haunts me. The memory of it runs through my mind so much that I end up dozing off again: the next thing I know, I’m awaking to the sound of Mrs. Hamilton’s voice from downstairs and the warm smell of coffee.  
I roll over onto my back to see her still laying in the same position as before, still fast asleep.  
I climb out of bed once again, this time to put my clothes back on and head downstairs to the lush main room, where Lizzy greets me with a sweet smile and a big bone china mug of coffee for me.  
“Good morning, and happy birthday, Joey baby,” she says with a kiss on my neck. The feel of her lips on my neck sends my toes into a tight curl.  
She then beckons me to one of the cold spindly black tables clustered near the main stage, a shiny black square lined with silver paint and glass bulb lights with a silver pole jutting straight up to the ceiling, and gestures for me to have a seat.  
“Breakfast will be ready soon,” she explains to me, “and we didn’t know how you like your coffee so we just left it black.”  
“Oh, it’s perfect,” I reassure her.  
“Goodie! But right now—the fair Gwendolyn has a little something for ya.” She steps away and, right from behind the pole enters Gwendolyn. Dressed in a black lace bra and a matching pair of little low rise black lace panties, underneath a lacy gray teddy, the bottom of which is lined with red rubies, she looks like she dolled herself up just for me. She had put on dark red eyeshadow, crimson lipstick, and lush blood red stilettos.  
“Oh fuck,” is all I can say. She tosses her kinky black hair back with a flick of the head and shows me a come-hither look accompanied with a hand pressed to her hip: she still has a fistful of stardust woven in her hair.  
“What can I do for you, baby doll?” she asks me, placing her other hand on the pole.  
I hesitate, and I think back to last night once again. It may have just been part of her job but there’s no denying that look of lust in her eye for me. Besides, a stripper is a stripper, and that I can’t refuse. I take a sip of my coffee before returning to her. I swallow it down, lean back in my chair, and give my own hair a toss back from my face.  
“How ‘bout you stick your toy box out for me and then I’ll shove my face right into your chest and blow?” I suggest to her. She flashes me a mischievous smirk.  
“Anything you want, birthday boy,” she tells me, and without another word, she opens her robe and starts to dance for me. Yeah, the snow outside can take its sweet time letting up because I’m gonna be here a while.


	5. (prince hamlet)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.  
It’s a dirty song but someone’s gotta sing it now.”  
-”We Care a Lot”, Faith No More

October 13, 1988. Somewhere outside of Oswego, New York.

Lupe took the liberty of making a little spot for me on the far side of the main room, on the ledge in the little nook near the stairwell leading up to the second floor and the loft. Mrs. Hamilton threw out a note at me that that nook in particular has the best view of the entirety of the club given I can lay on my back and peer up to the edge of the second floor and a sliver of the loft ceiling.  
She scrounged up a couple of clean pillows from the back of the club, ones that had never been used on top of that. She lay those pillows down on the otherwise hard floorboards, and had fluffed up the one cradling my head. Once I’m reclining down on my back with my legs outstretched and my hands upon my chest, she spreads the quilt over me to keep me warm. Within time, Louie comes over to me with a mug of hot chocolate and a wad of stale marshmallows pulled from the inside of her jeans pocket.  
Eh, it’s better than those stupid Mike n Ikes I had yesterday.  
“Happy birthday,” Lupe tells me in a soft voice and with a shy smile upon her face. I return the favor accompanied with a warm feeling inside my skin.  
“Thank you so much,” my voice cracks when I say that to her, so she gives me a giggle stifled by a hand over her mouth. Louie presses her hands to her hips as if about to sass me.  
“Drink up, big boy,” she orders me, picking a marshmallow off of top of the mug and slipping it into her mouth; “Cindy Lou Who made you that big fat bowl of soup last night to warm up your tootsies and your tummy. I wanna know what the cocoa’s like.”  
I take a swig from the mug: even though I know those marshmallows are stale and old, I swallow down a couple of them. Not bad, and the cocoa itself is just right.  
“And?” she asks me, keeping her hands pressed to her hips.  
“Perfect,” I reply, swallowing down another marshmallow and almost gagging on the hard outer shell, and without another word, she flashes me a thumbs up and a slight wink. Lupe then whispers something into Louie’s ear, and I swear it consists of “he’s so gorgeous” but their giggling covers it up enough to where I can’t actually hear it. I show them both a smirk and a slight raise of the eyebrow. To think that I am flirting with a pair of strippers at the moment, a pair of strippers who are also sisters.  
Then again, I couldn’t ask for anything more than this here in Black Orchid, all snuggled up in the nook with my body warm and everything around me relaxed and willing to help me as well as please me.  
They both walk away from me within time and I’m alone again with the mug and the blanket wrapped around me. I lay my head back onto the pillow and rest the mug on my chest, and gaze up at the ceiling overhead. And then there’s that girl upstairs, and I still can’t recall her name. At one point, I lift my head for a rather large swig of cocoa and marshmallows and I hear a light shuffling over me. I lay my head back down for another gaze up to the ceiling and the edge of the loft. Nothing there. Interesting.  
Once I drink down the rest of the cocoa, I set down the mug on the floor, and it’s here I feel myself growing sleepy. My eyelids droop closed when I catch the sound of it again: it’s like someone’s crumpling paper. I’m too drowsy.  
I doze off for a few moments, and awaken to the blurry sight of Mrs. Hamilton and Lizzy congregated before me on the other side of the room with their backs to me. I can hear them whispering to one another, and every so often I catch a sliver of a word, that is until Lizzy mentions my name. I rub my eyes and groan in my throat in hopes to grab their attention; I drop my hands in time to bear the sight of them whirling around to face me.  
“Ah, there he is!” Mrs. Hamilton declares with a glimmer in her eye.  
“Sleepy head lazy bones,” Lizzy teases me.  
“What’s going on here?” my voice breaks from my nap.  
“We were just discussing on how to bring you back to your humble abode,” Mrs. Hamilton explains to me, the twinkle in her eye never wavering. I rub my eyes again before raising myself up on my elbows.  
“What’s it doing outside?” I ask them. “Is it snowing?”  
“Nah, it quit snowing when we all got up this morning,” Lizzy replies. “The plows came through and took care of the roads for us all.”  
“What about her, though?” I gesture up to the loft.  
“Don’t worry about her,” Mrs. Hamilton assures me with a wave of the hand. “We’ll take care of her and find something for her when she wakes up.”  
“What was her name, by the way—I’m drawing a blank on it...” I sit upright and rub my forehead followed by the side of my neck.  
“Maya?” Lizzy fills in the blank for me.  
“Maya, that was it!” Everything makes sense again.  
“Yeah, Cindy told us. We didn’t know if she told you, though.”  
“Eh, it’s neither here nor there at this point.” I peel back the covers and set my feet on the floor.  
FLYING BANANA SLUGS ON A SANDWICH, THAT’S COLD!  
“Where are my shoes?” I ask them, running my hands upon my upper arms. My teeth start chattering right then.  
“I think they’re upstairs by your bed,” Mrs. Hamilton answers with an odd smirk upon her face. “Can we get you anything, by the way?”  
“A thing of water, pretty please?” I suggest to them. I shiver as I climb out of the nook and head back upstairs to fetch the only thing to keep my feet from growing even colder. When I reach the top, from the looks of it, Maya hasn’t budged from her spot there on the edge of the bed.  
Another question I have for her is what happened that led to her laying there in the storm drain with the rope wrapped around her ankles. I hope that when she wakes up she’ll be willing to share a recollection for me and the girls here in Black Orchid. But for the time being, I need to let her rest. I slip on my socks and, once I lace up my Chucks, I hear Mrs. Hamilton’s voice floating up from the first floor in conjunction with a man’s voice.  
I stand to my feet and make my way to the stairwell: I catch a glimpse of a crown of puffy brown hair near the front door. That can’t be Scott, or Charlie for that matter: they wouldn’t know where I am, and they wouldn’t be here anyways. I reach the second stairwell in time to hear him say, “--just so long as I can warm up my ass.”  
I stop there next to the nook where I took my little cat nap in hopes to recognize him. He’s short, a touch shorter than me, with that shaggy light, soft looking brown hair down past his shoulders, the scruffy seedlings of a beard about his round face, and steely blue-green eyes under a prominent brow. He’s wrapped in a heavy knit sweater underneath a lush, crushed crimson red velvet vest and a black overcoat, and has on knee high black leather boots: he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and I spot a shiny glimmer of silver on his ring finger.  
“Hey, I remember you,” he says to me in an odd, European sounding accent. “Joey, right?”  
“Yeah...” I have an odd feeling in my stomach about him, like I’ve seen him before but I can’t recall it at the moment. Lizzy returns to the room with a clean glass of water for me; I thank her right as he steps towards me. He leans in closer to my face such that I smell the soapy cologne wafting off of his neck.  
“I heard what happened between you and Anthrax,” he confesses. “That just--God.” He shakes his head. “I have nothing to say about that, and I usually have shit to say about things.” He raises his eyebrows which brightens his face a bit; I’m getting flashbacks to the bus in Sweden two years ago.  
“Pfff, tell me about it. I even quit drinking because I couldn’t live with myself if I continued. That still wasn’t enough.”  
I take a slight sip from my glass before holding it before my chest and speaking up again. “You’re--I wanna say Lars?”  
“Correct-a-mundo.” He wags a finger at me and I catch another glimmer of silver upon his ring finger.  
“Wait a minute, I thought you were German,” I stop him.  
“Danish,” he corrects me. “I’m a man about town, though.”  
“So what brings you here?” I ask, feeling suspicious. He shrugs at me.  
“What do you mean you don’t know?”  
“I can’t really say,” he admits to me.  
“Why’s that?”  
“I just can’t.”  
“So--you came here for no reason?”  
“No. I am here for a reason.”  
“So you’re here for a reason but you admit to me that you won’t tell me?”  
“Yes.”  
“What is this, an Abbott and Costello routine?”  
“No. I just--can’t--really--say.”  
He nibbles on his bottom lip and pushes the same strand of hair behind his ear again. That bit of shine on his ring finger. Okay. Makes sense.  
I drop my gaze to the triangular patch of sweater underneath his vest and his coat, and the shiny black obsidian arrowhead upon his chest. He’s like a prince, a dark prince all donned in this opulence, from the red velvet to the fine paisley lining inside of his coat and the black and silver goggles tucked in the breast pocket.  
“I--I should go,” he blurts out, wheeling around and heading for the front door again. He opens the door, which reveals the blanket of bright pearly white snow outside, and I lunge for him.  
“Lars!” I call out. He stops and turns to look at me, and that pendant shines in the bright white glare of the snow. I hunch my shoulders against the cold.  
“I was just going to ask--what is this?” I gesture to my own chest to bring attention to his own. He glances down to the pendant upon his chest and raises his eyebrows at the sight of it as if he had seen something extraordinary.  
“This? It’s my arrowhead. I got this from my grandmother when I moved here to the United States.” He swallows as he gazes up at me without lifting his head. “It’s to open up a wormhole to allow easy travel because flying can get rather pricey. I have used it all of once, though.”  
I pause for a second.  
“A wormhole,” I repeat that.  
“Yeah.” He shifts his weight before me and clears his throat. “I didn’t believe it at first, either. But it does indeed work, though. I can go from San Francisco back to Copenhagen in just a couple of minutes if I want to. The sole issue with it is it’s kind of painful.”  
“Like... how so?”  
“Little pinches on the private area, especially if you’re a little bit on this side of well-endowed, and on the back and the hips, too. Then again you are climbing through a man made tear in the fabric of space and time.”  
“Can we go inside to talk more about it, though?” I suggest to him, shivering at the icy, damp feeling around us.  
“Might as well, You look cold.”


	6. (the prince and the pauper)

I take a seat at one of the tables in the front room, the one closest to the entrance of the kitchen given the room itself smells of coffee and fresh cake. Yes, birthday cake! Lars follows suit in the chair across from me: I watch him adjust the lapels of his coat prior to sitting down. Underneath his sweater and his vest, I make out the round shape of a slight belly: indeed, taking a second glimpse at his face, I notice the roundness and fullness of his cheeks and lower jaw. It’s as if he used to be quite heavy but then lost a lot of the weight.  
Indeed, the chair creaks under his weight: when he straightens himself upright, I can tell the seat is a little too snug for him. I rest my hands in my lap before crossing my right leg over my left, and I feel a little better about my thick thighs.  
“Thin, silky, and elegant,” he remarks, his eyes scanning over me, “no wonder why you feel cold so easily.”  
“I have a big black hole inside of me, though,” I point out.  
“How come it hasn’t eaten you alive?”  
“I know how to keep him pleased,” I assure him, and I rub my hand up my stomach. I could use another large bowl of soup courtesy of Cindy right about now.  
“Before I gained some weight, I started wearing several layers,” he says, adjusting the lapels of his overcoat again. “It also makes sense to do it because it’s so bloody cold now in the Bay Area. James and I don’t know how you do it here upstate, Joe.”  
“We do it ‘til our bones break and glaze over with hoarfrost,” I answer with another gentle caress of my stomach before bringing both my hands back into my lap. Lupe and Louie’s chattering catches my ear right then. I crane my neck for a peek into the narrow kitchen to the right of me. I don’t pay attention to him or the feet underneath the table, until the soles of my shoes slip upon the hard floor. I catch myself on the arms of the chair so he has a good view of my body.  
“Forgive me for staring but—” Through my tousled hair, I notice him gazing on at me as if in awe. “--I never really got a good look at you before. You’re very handsome.”  
I flick my hair back out of my face in order to look at him, and I feel my face grow warm.  
“Handsome?” I’m flabbergasted.  
“Yeah.” He tucks the same strand of hair behind his ear such that another glimmer of his wedding band on his ring finger. That’s getting a little annoying.   
“Dishy, in fact. You wanna know the truth? You seriously wanna know the truth? It actually amazes me in how you haven’t had the girls chucking their brassieres and their panties at you while you were up there, standing with the mic in hand and singing your heart out. I mean, you are just--” He leans forward so I can hear him better over Lupe and Louie’s chattering.  
“--have any of the girls flirted with you?” his voice is so soft that I pause for a moment to actually comprehend what he was asking me.  
“Here?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Yes, they have. They all compliment me, and they’re nice to me, and I think Gwendolyn--the black girl--might have a thing for me but I dunno.”  
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”  
“Last night, while I was getting into bed, she goes ‘you’re so sexy, Joe’, and I’m like... ‘okay.’”  
“Wait. What? Fucking... what?”  
“She’s a stripper, Lars. A stripper. Strippers take their clothes off and are kind to you as part of their job.”  
“So?” He almost looks hurt.  
“So? I kind of expect that coming out of a woman like that.”  
“Oh, puh-lease.” He rolls his eyes at me. “You really don’t think she doesn’t find you good-looking? I find you good-looking, man. I find you very sexy in fact. Even I am jealous of you.”  
“You? Jealous of m--no.”  
“It is true! You are very a sensual and lovely man, and you’re a front man on top of that. Front men always get the brunt of the action.”  
“I didn’t get that much,” I point out to him.  
“Alright, now you’re just fucking with me.”  
“Dude, come on,” I roll my eyes at him, “alright, alright. I’ve seen you behind the kit. You’re a machine.”  
“Seriously? I’m not that good, Joey. I’m not Charlie.”  
“Pfff, nobody’s Charlie. Shit, Charlie isn’t even Charlie.”  
“I wish I was as good as you think I am. And you’re smoldering compared to me. What have I got? I’ve got a fat round face and a belly that doesn’t know what to do with itself.”  
“You have a wife, for Pete’s sake.”  
“Right. A wife and I don’t know if you can see it very well, but thirty pounds around my hips, thighs, and waist. Really, it wasn’t long ago I actually had a big potbelly on me. I’m also in the silver medal position with a tug on my neck. There are moments I feel like I need to run out with this arrowhead with me.”  
I’m taken aback by that. “Oh? Oh, really?”  
“Yes,” he insists. “And I wouldn’t lie to you, either.”  
I nibble on my bottom lip at that. “I’d think that you would,” I confess in a curt tone, “given you’re here right now, right next to me.”  
“The hell is that supposed to mean?”  
“You still didn’t answer my questions from earlier,” I recall. “Why are you here?”  
He opens his mouth to say something but the sound of Lupe’s tinkling sweet voice stops him right in his tracks.  
“Well, what about her, though?”  
“Who, Maya?” asks Louie.  
“Yes.”  
“I dunno, maybe we can take her to the hospital if she doesn’t wake up soon.”  
Lars leans over closer to me. I turn my head to better face him.  
“Not to be rude, but who are they talking about?” he asks me in a low voice. “Do you know?”  
“Oh, this little gal named Maya upstairs,” I explain in a near whisper, “I found her last night before the snow came in and the girls here and I have been trying to figure her out and take care of her.”  
“Maya?” he echoes, knitting his eyebrows together.  
“Maya... dunno her last name.”  
“That’s funny, I just so happen to know a girl named Maya. And I know her through my wife, of all people.”  
“Really.” I raise an eyebrow at that.  
“Yeah. She introduced me during a party literally right before we were married and one thing that stuck out to me about her was this weird fucking crease on her forehead.”  
“How was it weird?” I think about the crease on Maya’s forehead.  
“Just... the way it was positioned, like I thought it was a lobotomy scar but it wasn’t. She never told me how she got it, either, but I swear it resembled a surgical scar of sorts.”  
“That’s interesting. Maya upstairs has one on her head, too.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, it’s like prominent, too. When I was bringing her over here, I could see it in the dark and with rain in my eyes.”  
“What shape is it?”  
“Like a horizontal line, like a worry line almost. Except you can see it from a mile away.” I have an odd fluttery feeling in the pit of my stomach.  
“Anyways, she is from England but her parents were from Norway... but I never would’ve guessed it because she had like real long dark hair and hazel eyes.”  
“Wait, back up. You’re... still talking about Maya, right?”  
“Yes. Maya Sorensen. She’s a British author with a punk zine called After the Watershed. It’s quite revolutionary because she goes quite in depth and she’s rather frank in her writing. I remember the first time I read the first edition, like I thought ‘wow, this woman is really going to go places with this, like I see more people going forth to write a zine of their own—”  
“Yes, but you’re—talking about Maya, right?”  
“Yes, unless there is a different Maya around here.”  
“I’m sure I’m the one talking about Maya here, unless the one upstairs is a horse of a different color from the one you’re talking about...” My voice trails off and I lean back in my chair with my hands resting in my lap once again. But then I lean forward and bring my face back towards him.  
“Wait, wait, wait,” I start again, setting my hands on the top of the table. “Back up, back up. Let’s clear this up. We’re talking about—Maya, right?”  
“Right. Maya Sorensen.” He knits his eyebrows together once again. “And—may I ask how you know her?”  
“I don’t.”  
“How do you know her name then?” He flutters his eyelashes at me.  
“I found her lying in a storm drain last night, bound at the ankles with a rope. She told Cindy and me her name but I never learned her last...”  
Lars gapes at me as his skin washes out to the color of wet paper.  
“You found her—laying--in a storm drain.” He looks like he’s about ready to puke.  
“Yeah, the two of us just about froze to death while I was bringing her over here last night, too. Granted, I was more concerned with her because she was more battered than me. But I still passed out when I got here.”  
“Oh—” He leans back in his seat with his hands rested upon the edge of the table. He glances around the floor around us. “Ohhhhh my God. That has to be one of—are you serious?”  
“As serious as the black hole inside my stomach.”  
He hesitates with a lick of the lips.  
“Wait a minute, are we seriously talking about the same Maya here?”  
“I don’t fucking know!” I can’t help but chuckle. He licks his lips at me.  
“She’s upstairs--you said?”  
“Yes. I can take you to see her if you’d like.”  
“But I think you’ve got something coming for you, though. I keep smelling cake and beer.”  
“Oh, yeah. That’s for my birthday party later tonight.”  
His face softens at the sound of that.  
“It’s your birthday?”  
“Yes, sir. Twenty-eight years ago today, I crawled out from my mom’s snatch and began to show the world my legs. Yet here I am, poor as a motherfuck and with no prospects left than to my own wits, sitting in a strip club about four miles from home with the fat of royalty. Nice fucking life, am I right?”  
“Twenty-eight,” he repeats it, “you’re twenty-eight.”  
“Yes.”  
The tip of his tongue slithers out of his mouth for a moment before it rides along the edges of his teeth.  
“What’s so special about that?” I ask him.  
“Twenty-eight, you’re a fucking stud. Hang tight, I’m going to check this woman out and make sure we’re talking about the same person.”  
He climbs to his feet and pads out of the room towards the stairwell. I watch him ascend the steps for a moment before I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn my head to see Lupe looming over me wearing a thin black sweater embedded with silvery threads.  
“Yes?” I ask her with a raise of my eyebrows.  
“T minus some twenty-odd minutes before Mrs. Hamilton returns with some drinks to round out this party.”  
“I don’t drink anymore, though,” I point out. She shrugs, and the grin never leaves her face.  
“We can give you a virgin screaming orgasm if that’s what you’d like.” The way in which she said that made the fluttery feeling inside of my stomach return with a vengeance.  
“Where’s the cake, though?”  
“Cakes,” she corrects me.  
“Cakes? There’s more than one?”  
“All for you and that other stud muffin, birthday boy.” She flashes me a wink and for a second, I believe she’s about to kiss me but she never does. Instead, she ducks back into the kitchen with a toss of her hair and another wink at me before disappearing behind the door. I hear her speaking to Louie in a hushed voice in there; I catch the sound of Lars’ footsteps upstairs, stretching further away from me as he ascends up into the loft.  
She did wish me happy birthday after all.


	7. (whole lotta love)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We'd be so lost, in our mouths, the best, I feel it everyday (every way),  
You feel so wrong, be alone, if you just follow somebody someday.”  
-”Soft and Wet”, Prince

The girls had gotten Lars and me several small square shaped cakes, half of them glazed in chocolate and sprinkled with jimmies, and the other half in Swiss meringue. Mrs. Hamilton arrived in time from behind one of those snow plows, the ones covered in a fine layer of plasma to protect the shiny steel from rusting: she handed out a bottle of ginger beer to Lars before she ducked into the kitchen in order to make screaming orgasms for the girls, and a virgin screaming orgasm for me.  
Lars himself meanwhile had taken off his coat and lay it on the bench in the nook. As I wait for my drink, I watch him step into the room with bit of a satisfied expression upon his face. He adjusts the hem of his shirt and then the hem of his vest over his full, round waist. His clothes look a little too snug for his body.  
I lean back in the chair, again with my hands resting in my thighs and my right leg crossed over my left.  
Lizzy sidles over to me with a small black porcelain plate with four of those cakes in question, two chocolate and two meringue. The tattoos on her body flash right before my eyes as she pulls away from my face.  
“I hope you’re hungry,” she tells me.  
“But of course,” I retort with a smirk. She sets a hand on the right side of my face, and I gaze up into her eyes. She had put on rich mahogany lipstick to better emphasize the full shape of her lips. I’m resisting looking at her chest: the bare skin and her cleavage are hanging right there right before me. No, I can’t, even as she shows me a little smile.  
“You’re so sweet,” she says to me in a husky voice. But little does she know, I’m resisting the urge to ask her to stick one of those cakes right into my mouth. “Such a sweetheart. Your drink is coming, big boy.”  
She lets go of my face, and strokes around the table, and heads into the kitchen. I pick up one of the chocolate ones but I don’t take a bite. Instead, I turn my head to look at Lars, who’s standing right before Louie with his hands upon his hips. I lick my lips: I’m so thirsty.  
But there’s one question I need to ask Lars before he goes any further with her.  
I clear my throat but Gwendolyn steps out of the kitchen with a bulbous hurricane glass of what resembles a vanilla milkshake with a cherry on top.  
“Virgin screaming orgasm for the birthday boy,” she announces in such big bold fashion; she again has golden stardust embedded in the hair on the top of her head: it glitters under the milky light bathing the whole front room. She’s also wearing red again. I swallow down the tightening sensation inside of my throat because I know how she feels about me.  
Lars lets out a little giggle right behind me.  
“You’re so—full,” I hear Louie tell him, “so lush and plump—”  
I pay no attention to them but instead fix on the drink before me. Gwendolyn looms before me with one hand pressed to her hip.  
“I don’t understand you, Joe,” she confesses, leaning closer to my face.  
“H-How so?” I sputter out: it’s amazing I can even breathe with such a dry feeling inside my throat.  
“Baby, you’re in a strip club. Everyone that walks in through that door is a dirty dog waiting to come out and--”  
“And?” I finish in a near gasp.  
She leans over the table with her hands on either side of the plate in front of me. Her tongue slithers out of her mouth, and I catch a whiff of her perfume. I feel my bottom lip trembling.  
“Drink up, brown eyes,” she commands in a near whisper. I swallow again as I pick up the hurricane glass for a swig of the drink. I’m met with chocolate and coffee and something else, something creamy. It’s like I’m drinking another thing entirely, an entity not from a cold glass but from beneath Gwendolyn’s belt. I set down the glass on the table as she hands me the first of the chocolate cakes. Never taking my gaze off of her, I lean my head forward for a bite. It’s almost delicate.  
I take it down in three large bites before she touches my other hand resting on my thigh. I don’t move as she slips forward and onto my lap. She’s straddling me right there in the chair.  
“Kiss me,” she pleads to me in a hushed voice. Her fingers glide over my chest to the edge of my collar; for a second, I think she is going to completely rip off my sweater, but she only drops her hand down to my waist. She puckers her lips right before me. I nibble on my bottom lip. “Kiss me, Joe. Kiss me.”  
“Get down, honey pie,” I whisper to her; her hands drop even lower, down to the waistband of my jeans. I could feel her undoing the button.  
“Get—down—” Her fingers caress down the front of my jeans and follows suit with a light squeeze.  
“My goodness... so big and full,” the words leave her lips like a soft breeze, “Mr. Stallion. Just what I expected.”  
“I’m so what again?” I recall her remark from last night as the tips of her fingers fondle me: two thin layers of denim and cotton are the only things separating me from a full fledged erection for her.  
“Sexy. You’re more than sexy in fact. God, you’re so hot. Mmm—I want you.”  
I relax my hips and thighs so as to let her tongue and her hands do the talking. I feel her undo my jeans and stick her fingers down the front of my shorts. She’s handling me, and with nothing more than the flick of her wrist and stroking of her fingers. Meanwhile, her other hand slides up my back to the ends of my hair. I hold her close to me for a second before I reach under her shirt to unhook her bra.  
“Fuck shits, you’re such a stud,” she gasps in between kisses. “Mmm—such a naughty, naughty boy—”  
I don’t say anything, but rather I caress the smooth surface of the skin on her back, as smooth and gentle as melted butter. Her lips taste like meringue with a hint of ginger from the screaming orgasm she had had before. She breathes harder and faster with every touch of the lips against mine.  
“—mmm, hot, sexy Italian boy,” she breathes into my face.  
“Italian and Indian, baby girl,” I retort once her bra unhooks and she runs her hand through the hair at the back of my head.  
“Mmm—oh, Joey—” Her chest pushes even closer to me. She’s so soft; I’m partially inclined to take off her shirt for her to parade around topless.  
“Gwendolyn—” I gasp. She releases her lips so to look at me right in the face. The stardust glitters from the roots of her kinky black hair.  
“I--I--” I can hardly think of anything.  
“Yes, baby?”  
“--I need to ask Lars a question,” is all I can stammer out.  
“It can wait, big boy,” she whispers into my face, the lust dancing upon her tongue. Well, she’s not wrong about that: I take a glimpse to my left only to find Lars and Louie had gone into another room down the corridor behind the stairwell. I catch the sound of metal on metal, metal bars creaking over nuts and bolts: it’s a sound that makes me think of all the times I heard a bed frame in my parents’ room, and I make out the sound of a woman breathing heavy. It’s then followed by a broken voice:  
“Louie—Louie!”  
Oh. Oh God. Don’t tell me—  
Gwendolyn sets her hands on either side of my face and shoves her tongue deep into my mouth. Oh. Oh God. Okay, this is nice.  
I close my eyes and hold her close to me, although I want her to reach down my jeans again. But I never say anything to her about it. I can’t. She has her hands on my slim body and every light touch is enough to make me want more of it.  
There’s a splash and a break of glass in the next room.  
“Gwen!” Lizzy shouts from the kitchen.  
“Gwendolyn!” Mrs. Hamilton follows suit. She lifts her mouth from mine and I gasp for air.  
“Yes?” she calls out.  
“Come in here and help us!” Lizzy replies. She returns to me for a light pat on the lips and a tap on the nose with her finger.  
“Later, big boy,” she whispers into my face, and she climbs off of me and heads into the next room.  
My chest is heaving. My heart is pounding. My mouth feels dry and parched, and riddled with the taste of coffee liqueur and hooch. Her perfume is still right up my nose. But I can only wonder what Maya is doing at the moment.  
Not Lars: he has his hands full right now from what I can tell by the gasps coming from Louie. I need to see her, the girl upstairs.  
I pick up the hurricane glass and the plate of cakes, and bolt out of the room. Careful not to spill, I run up the stairwell to the second floor where I see her, sitting there at the table before the stage. I pant from the feeling, or from running up the stairs. I don’t know.  
I take a seat next to her, my chest still heaving as I set down the dish and the glass on the table. Her eyes sweep in my direction: her expression never changes as I struggle to catch my breath.  
“Is everything alright?” she asks me in a gentle voice.  
“I--I dunno,” I confess.  
“What do you mean?”  
I take a good look at her and those hazel irises staring back at me. I lift my gaze to better eye that peculiar scar on her forehead: Lars was right, that does look like a surgical scar, right smack in between the matted waves of black hair flowing off of her head and part of the way into her face. Her skin is pale, too pale in fact. One can only imagine how hungry she must be feeling at the moment. I lift myself upright for her to better see me, and then I pick up one of the cakes with meringue and offer it to her.  
“No, thank you,” she says, the tone of her voice never changing.  
“Are you sure?” I ask her, raising my eyebrows at her.  
“Positive. Food nauseates me.” She swallows and I see the muscles in her throat contracting. Gosh, I thought I was thin.  
“I have a headache,” she confesses to me.  
“You might feel better if you eat something.” But she shakes her head. I stick half of the cake into my mouth for a particularly large bite. As I’m eating it up, my heart calms down and I relax right there in the chair next to her. Mrs. Hamilton, Lizzy, and Gwendolyn’s voices all float up the stairwell: at least the bed stopped creaking. Once I swallow down the bite of cake, I return to her with an idea in mind.  
“Would you like to come home with me?” I offer her. “I have a very comfy couch back at my place. I’ll let you use my shower, if you’d like.”  
“That’s very kind of you,” she admits, fingering the crease on her forehead. “I must find my sister, though.”  
“What’s her name?”  
“Candace.”  
“Candace?”  
“Candace Bradley. But I don’t know how to come in touch with her.”  
“I’ll help you find her,” I promise to her. “Besides, I’d rather you come home with me than stay here at a strip joint. As beautiful as this place is--here, let me finish up my cakes and my drink and I’ll fetch Lars...”  
I cram the other half of the cake into my mouth, but I take my time with the other two and the rest of the virgin screaming orgasm. I offer the rest of the second chocolate cake but she again refuses. I stick the last half of it right into my mouth when I realize the bed stopped creaking downstairs.  
“Joey?” Lars calls out.  
“Hm?” I turn my head and reply back with my mouth full.  
“Where are you?”  
“Uhere.”  
“Come again?”  
I swallow down the bite.  
“Up here!”  
There’s a pause, and then I catch the view of the disheveled hair upon the crown of his head. He’s fixing the buttons on his vest as he enters our view.  
“There you are,” he greets me, “I was just about to ask you if I could take you back to your place given there’s so much snow outside--” He stops.  
“What?” I turn my head to look at Maya, who’s shrinking down in her seat at the sight of him like a timid cat.  
“What’s wrong?” I gape at her and then return to Lars, who knits his eyebrows together at her.  
“What’s wrong?” I ask again.  
“Is--everything alright?” he follows up, reluctant.  
“It’s just Lars. He’s not going to hurt you. I promise.”  
“Yeah. I’m just going to use my arrowhead here and--” She gasps and follows it up with a whimper. I nibble on my bottom lip as I climb to my feet. I lift her up out of the chair and hold her against my chest. She whimpers in her throat like a wounded animal. Lars holds onto the arrowhead pendant with a hurt look upon his face.  
“Look,” he points at the pendant with his eyebrows raised and his face soft. “Look--watch me.”  
He holds the pendant at the base out from his neck and into the space over the stairwell. He moves it in a horizontal direction, followed by vertically and then in a circle. It’s as if a thin veil of lace emerged out of thin air right before him, one covering a black hole that grows wide enough for him to step through, but not big enough for me.  
“Follow me,” I coax her. I let go of her and take a step for the lacy veil over the gaping darkness above the stairs.  
“So I just get in?” I ask him.  
“Yeah, just put your hands in first, and then bow your head,” he advises, “the holes are always just big enough for me, but since you’re taller, you might want to duck. You’re thin enough, too, so you don’t have to suck in your gut like me.”  
“Okay.”  
I breathe in deep before pushing in through the veil and bowing into the hole. It’s like someone’s pressing on my head and my hips with a heavy sledgehammer. I wriggle my way inside: this time he’s wrong, I do have to suck in my stomach. Total darkness surrounds me: it’s like burrowing through an underground tunnel. I feel something wet on my back, and then on my hips and thighs. The hole is filling with water to carry me. Or so I think.  
I hold my breath given the water in the wormhole smells of something rancid, but I crawl my way through the hole and land onto hard ground, on my back. I open my eyes to the thin sliver of gray sky over me. I blink several times and I recognize the awning over my front step. I’m home!  
There’s a thud on the floor next to me and I roll my head over the porch to see Maya laying on her side. She groans inside of her throat.  
I hoist myself onto my elbows to look at her meager body, at the tattered dark clothes upon her. At least Lars or Cindy, somebody in Black Orchid managed to take the rope off of her, but I still have another question. She lifts herself up onto her left elbow and stares at the wall next to my front door.  
“What in God’s name happened to you,” I wonder aloud.  
“God left me for dead in the gutter,” she replies. “But then I was saved by death.”  
“Let’s get you inside...”


	8. (the first evening)

October 13, 1988. Oswego, New York.

“So, this is my place. It’s not much, but it’s home to me.”  
As I’m hanging up my coat on the hook next to the door, Maya sinks down into my comfy chair next to the phone and takes a glance around her. I drop down to my knees for a second in front of her: I want a shower so much from the itches around the crown of my head, and the very sight of the scar on her forehead is enough to make my head itch even more. But I have to make sure she’s comfortable first.  
She musters an exhausted look right at me from the head of the chair. Part of her black hair dangles into her face like a filmy black lace curtain. I reach forward to push the hair out of her eyes: she closes her eyes which in turn softens her face to where she resembles a porcelain doll.  
I loom in closer to her so I can smell the mildew on her collar. I feel a twinge of hunger inside of my stomach: four cakes and a non-alcoholic drink isn’t enough to make me feel better. But I examine her gaunt features and I wonder if she’s merely resisting the need to be fed.  
“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” I ask her once I tuck the strand of hair behind her ear. She opens her hazel eyes; she’s so pale and wan, like she’s about to fall ill with something.  
“I am sure,” she replies, the soft tone of her voice never changing. “And I am just glad that...” She clears her throat. “...you tugged me out of the rain when you did.”  
“Are you not feeling well?”  
I examine the scar on her forehead: it’s exactly like a perfect surgical wound, deep and sealed closed with a bit of a skin graft.  
“May I ask--and now understand, I don’t want to be rude or anything,” I begin, “but where did you get this?” I ever so lightly touch the middle of the scar with the tip of my finger and she recoils as if I shocked her.  
“What’s--What’s wrong?”  
She shudders and shakes, and she covers her face with both hands. I swallow right before I lurk back away from her body. In fact, I have a seat there on my knees right before her as if I’m begging for mercy. I stay there with my hands lax right between my thighs and my back slouched. I don’t ever mean to hurt her. I don’t ever mean to hurt anyone.  
“Forgive me,” I plead to her in a soft voice. She never moves her hands from her face but I can hear her breathing into the palms. I glance down at the floor and her feet: that rope had left deep braided impressions on the lower legs of her trousers. Not her legs per se, her trousers.  
Indeed, the very sight of it is enough to coax a knit of the eyebrows from me. Then again, if she was so reactive to my question about the scar, I can only wonder how she’d react to my question about that. I lick my lips: and once again, I’m a thirsty boy. I clear my throat and she flinches at the sound of it.  
“Listen--I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll be right down the hallway here. I’m not going to the city or anything--I’ll just be a few feet away from you. Tell you what...”  
Again, she doesn’t move.  
“I’ll keep the door open just a crack, so if you want or need anything, you can just knock and I’ll come for you. I promise.”  
Maya never removes her hands from her face but I can only assume she heard me. I sigh through my nose, and hold onto the bottom hem of my sweater with two fingers, and peel it off of me. I stand to my feet with it rolled over my forearm: I think back to the girls at Black Orchid and I sort of wish I had taken off my shirt when I was there to stop Gwendolyn, Morgan, and the Jacksons all right in their tracks.  
Eh. Until next time.  
I sling the sweater over my shoulder and pad down the hall to the bathroom for a nice warm shower and a moment to myself. As promised, I keep the door ajar wide enough for her to peek through. And then I feel something brush against me, something cold and lacy.  
I turn around to see the wall and the window behind me, but nothing more. Must be that time of year again, that time where it starts growing darker earlier and Mrs. Snow makes more appearances from the shadows.  
She’s one of the first ghosts I encountered when I first moved into my pad here a few years back, her and Mr. Lang and the boy, the third I just refer to as the Boy with No Hands because he somehow lost his hands at the wrist and he refuses to speak about it. At first, I didn’t know what she was, or who she was, or what she wanted from me.  
But I brushed my teeth one night before bed and I caught a glimpse of the silver haired lady standing in the corner next to the shower door with a foul look on her face and a white smock lined in frills. At first, she reminded me of the lunch lady at school who always gave my buddy Brick a filthy look whenever he short changed her, but then again, she looked too clean to be the lunch lady. More like a nurse, with her bobbed hair flipped at the ends, and her little white lace gloves and matching mock turtleneck. I remember seeing her in the mirror at first, and I turned around and she had vanished.  
The second time I saw her was not even two nights later: I lay in my bed with my jeans off and the blankets pulled up to my waist. She gripped onto my wrists and warned me not to let her catch me with my pants down again. I asked her why but she never told me. Her touch was as cold as ice, as cold as any lake effect snow I had ever experienced here on the shores of Lake Ontario. I always see her around my birthday, when the days are growing shorter and the snow starts falling. Thus ever since then I refer to her as Mrs. Snow.  
But it was that first time after brushing my teeth I made an effort to have my dream catcher hanging up in my room. Between her and the Man in Black, I have horrifying nightmares when they manifest around here. The night she caught me with my pants down and my fingers on my dick I was almost afraid to fall asleep because I had one of the worst and weirdest dreams ever. I don’t remember what it was about but I only recall waking up and laying there on my back, waiting for the sun to rise. I was scared out of my wits because of Mrs. Snow.  
One thing I’ve noticed is lighting incense keeps her pleased. So when I drop my pants, I reach for the matchbox over the sink and take one out. I turn to the thin strip of dark wood laying upon the window sill and the little box of fresh incense sticks: I take one out, slip the slender end of it into the slot, light the match and ignite the other end of it. The first thin wisps of aromatic smoke billow up in front of my face.  
“Don’t kill me in here, please,” I say aloud, waving the match about to dowse the flame. Once the incense smoke levels out into a thin stripe across the glass, I strip myself completely naked and turn to the shower.  
I cannot climb into the warm water fast enough. I let it all cascade over my chest and down my thighs, and all around my head, all over the back and the crown. Once my eyes are closed, I think about my parents and if I should tell them about Maya. They would have to know about her sooner or later given I saved her from drowning there in the storm drain. In fact, everyone here in Oswego would have to know about her. I’m already kind of a hero here from my stint in Anthrax: I must as well speak about her.  
But on the other hand, I’m more of an outsider here than anything. I’ve always been an outsider, the odd man out, the strange one, even here upstate. I’m often judged and inquired about petty bullshit, but when I was with Anthrax, I was floored by their hospitality and their warm welcome. Like for once, this misfit found his place here, with them. I was always told it was my skin, my eyes, the whole package, that people would look at me odd and back away. So I don’t know what to think about it as I start washing my hair.  
God, my back is so tight. I slept on such a comfy bed last night but I was carrying her all the way to the strip club and then I fell when I got there. I’m standing here under the faucet with the water washing over me, and I’m wondering if she’s feeling alright since I don’t have a clue when she last ate something.  
I scrub myself down and here’s where I start feeling more like myself. Mrs. Snow is at bay from the incense and as far as I know, I’m alone. Once the soap washes away, I reach down for a touch or two. I’m not really feeling up for it, though. Fuck.  
I do one final rinse before switching off the water and reaching for a clean towel on the rung outside of the door. I’m hungry again: I tie my hair up in the towel and step out into the cool bathroom. The cold part is the linoleum under my feet. I flash back on the strippers in Black Orchid. If I was twice the man I could be, I could probably turn the tables on Gwendolyn better.  
I smear my hand over the mirror to better see my reflection against the condensation. God, I don’t know what to think right now.  
I look down at myself and I remember what Gwendolyn had told me about it being a strip club. Everyone shows the scoundrel within them when they walk through that door. Everyone shows their true desire once they’re behind those walls. I take a glimpse back up at myself, into my own two brown eyes.  
My aunt used to call me sassy. Fresh. Cheeky. Yeah, I’m a cheeky bastard alright. In fact, I’m half inclined to put on that headdress I wore in “Indians” and dance around for them in my underwear, and then have dinner with them. Show my wild side. But then again, I just want dinner.  
My room is right there, right across the hall from the bathroom: before I step out into the even bigger draft, I take a peek into the dark front room to make sure Maya’s out of sight. I then step out of the bathroom naked. I’m only going a couple of steps but it’s my naked butt and my dick, for fuck’s sake.  
Goose pimples spread all over my body as I make my way to my closet door and open it for a shirt and my flannel pajama bottoms. As I’m putting my clothes on, I spot something out of the corner of my eye: a tiny black spider crawls up the inside wall into the corner closest to me. Well, at least it’s a small one this time and not a big black widow like the ones crawling on my face.  
I keep the towel wrapped around me to keep the chill off of my hair as I return to the front room and the kitchen: she keeps resisting any offer to eat so I might as well make myself something. I don’t have much other than a big can of tomato soup, some oyster crackers, and some salad; with that, I can’t wait to have dinner at my parents’ house again--if anything, that’ll be my birthday dinner. This will just be rehearsal and if anything, it’ll keep me warm. I still wish I was a better cook than I am right now.  
I take my seat at the kitchen table with my big bowl of soup and some crackers crumbled over the top, and I peer out the doorway at her still sitting there in my chair with her hands over her face.  
I don’t know if she’s even moved at all, or if she’s just fucking with me, but I can only squirm in my seat at the sight of her. I’m half inclined to turn on the light but I’d rather not.  
I soon clean up my mess and turn in early for the night: it’s pitch dark by now and I have no desire to head out anywhere at the moment. I stop right before her, her head still buried in the palms of her hands. I sling the towel over my shoulder as I give her a good long stare. The whole entire time she does not budge a bit from behind her hands. I peer over at the small dusty couch in front of me: before Mom and I bought my bed, I slept on that thing for nearly two months, and I always slumbered well on there.  
“I’m--uh, going to bed,” I tell her, “you know--if you wanna bunk with me, you’re more than welcome to. My bed’s really comfy. But if nothing, that couch is really comfy, too.”  
And again, Maya never moves a muscle. I don’t know if she even heard me. But I shrug and continue onto my room to lay down with a book to read until I fall asleep. I hang up the towel on the hook behind the bathroom door: and at that point, the stick of incense has burned out to ashes in the tray.  
I step into my room with the door slightly ajar in case she wants something. I then crawl underneath the covers with a copy of Tropic of Capricorn. I lean back against the headboard, in between my own hockey mask and my dream catcher and beneath a big poster of the Beatles my dad found for me when I was in middle school. The mask has a plain creamy white surface on the outside but on the inside it’s patterned after my face: no one can wear it other than me. My dream catcher meanwhile is a narrow circle the size of my head woven with thin fine black leather, patterned down to its centerpiece: a small crystal rhinestone with a black spot in the middle, suspended over a pale yellow turtle the size of my pinkie nail.  
I plunk open the book and begin reading to the soft light of the lamp next to me.  
I get about three pages in before I feel my eyelids growing heavy.  
I nod off at the point where Henry Miller’s talking about his piano teacher and I slip into a light sleep.  
I’m standing in a lake of black waters. I don’t know if it’s Lake Ontario or something else, but the whole back side of my body feels as though it’s freezing over with a thick layer of ice. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. Out from the waters before me floats up a pair of huge orange eyes with no pupils. They fly right into my face and hang there. I feel my whole body shaking.  
No. No. No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no NO! NO! NO FUCK YOU!  
I jerk myself awake in time to see the small girl weeping at the foot of my bed. Oh. It’s just her. Another one of the ghosts who haunts this apartment complex is a ten year old blonde girl in a little yellow sundress who told me her name is Vera. Vera Lynn, as Mr. Lang likes to call her. The sole complaint I have with her is just that: she likes to stare at me whenever I doze off.  
“Jesus Christ, Vera--don’t stare at me like that,” I mutter at her. She vanishes into nothing and I decide it’s best for me to call it a night. I tuck the bookmark into the page before laying the book on the nightstand to my left. As I reach under the lampshade to switch off the light, I catch glimpse of something black and shapely next to the closet door. I rub my eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating.  
I make out the full shape of her spoon figure clothed in that filmy black lace: she’s got those massive hips, that round protruding waist, and that rather prominent chest. Her inky wavy black hair drifts out from behind her head and her skin is as white as the bone making up a dead man’s skull. Her dark eyes gape back at me like a pair of massive black holes and her lips pucker at the sight of my face.  
“Oh--Nerissa,” I greet her with a deep swallow to stifle the butterflies in my stomach: the most beautiful ghost of a woman who hanged herself five years ago I have ever seen. She’s big and buxom but I know she carried her heavy weight well when she was alive. Her hair drifts on either side of her as if she’s underwater, and she looms before the foot of my bed with her hands on either side of my feet. I flinch at the icy sensation on the top of the blankets, and I swallow at the very sight of her. Of all the ghosts that haunt this complex, she is the one who both scares me as much as she makes me hard. The Boy with No Hands scares me more than any of them, more than even Mrs. Snow; but Nerissa is voluptuously curvy enough that I gave her a free pass from the moment I laid eyes on her.  
“Did the slim and lush boy have a bad dream?” she asks me in a voice so ethereal and echo-y, I’d swear she’s calling through a tunnel; I feel the blood rush down to my hips at the sound of her nickname for me.  
“No,” I choke out. “I almost did, though.”  
She drifts closer to me: a shiver shoots up my spine and down my arms as she lays down on her side next to my knees.  
“Perhaps the dream catcher is losing its luster,” she whispers. I glance over my shoulder at the dream catcher hanging off the wall and return to her right as it looks as though she’s about to run her hand up my leg.  
“No, I swear to you that it isn’t,” I assure her. “If it was, I’d have the Man in Black and Mrs. Snow riding my ass like a fucking cow couple.” I knit my knees together underneath the covers: sometimes I wonder if she can ever see any time I have a hard on for her. Her silvery lips twist up into a smile at me and now I’m really having a difficult time trying not to resist her.  
“You know who else is riding your ass?” she asks me.  
“I’m--” I almost choke on my own saliva. She glides over my thighs and hovers right over my waist. Her fingers feel like feathers against my chest and my collar, but she never leans in closer for a kiss or anything like that. I close my eyes and relax every muscle in my arms. I feel her in front of me as the hair on my arms all stand on end.  
But once I open my eyes, she has vanished into thin air herself. I sigh through my parted lips. I need some sleep, and thus I turn off the light, which in turn blankets the whole room in blackness. I lay down on my side there in my own bed, under the sheet, the two blankets, and the quilt. I’m already feeling warm and silky, just as Lars described me.  
I think about him and how he’s doing over in Black Orchid, that is if he’s still there. He also has that arrowhead pendant around his neck, so for all I know he could be back in the Bay Area at the moment. I sigh through my nose in relaxation. Before I fall asleep, Maya is the last thing on my mind, out there in the next room in the dark, still in her wet clothes and dealing with things I can only imagine.  
I hope she sleeps well tonight.


	9. (the first hockey game)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: new character coming in–we have mr. lang the old man, the ghost in joey’s apartment complex, and now down the street from barney and billy’s house is “the old man”, a character based off a guy who… pretty much took my heart and stomped on it. Mr. lang will be referred to as just mr. lang.
> 
> “Can’t see the sky, nothing’s on the horizon.  
Can’t feel my hands and the water keeps risin’.  
Can’t fall asleep ‘cause I wake up dead.  
I just keep polling, I just keep rowing…”  
-“Rowing”, Soundgarden

October 14, 1988. Oswego, New York.

I awake the next morning to the feeling of warmth all around me, but I lay there without opening my eyes for a split second. The blankets cradle me and hold me so close like a toasty warm cocoon, and I don’t ever want to leave it. It’s all good right here, and I don’t wanna break away this spot here inside my bed because I know it won’t feel the same once I come back to it.  
I have my knees pulled up towards my waist and my arms relaxed before my chest. There’s a warm feeling inside my stomach and a little full feeling between my thighs. Mmm. This is too good for words. The blankets resemble to silk while my pillow feels like the softest and plushest marshmallow from the top of the bag.  
But then again, I feel that little tug in the pit of my stomach, that one that will morph into that uneasy feeling of not having eaten anything for hours. I also remember today is a hockey day.  
I have to get up to pee, anyways. And see how she’s doing in the other room.  
Oh, shit, Maya!  
I take my hand out from underneath the blankets so as to rub my eyes. I glance about the dim lit room, at the shadows on the ceiling overhead. Without lifting my head, I take a peek down at the foot of my bed to make sure Vera’s not down there leering at me.  
Okay, good.  
Sigh.  
I catch a glance of the clock on the nightstand next to me: eight thirty. Alright then.  
I slither out from underneath the covers and step my feet onto the chilly carpet. I want to crawl back into bed, but I have to see if Maya’s awake, or if she made her way to the couch. I slept like a rock last night: I probably never would’ve heard her if she came in here with me.  
I shiver as I make my way to the door and tug it open. The whole apartment is still dark with night, and then I wonder if it snowed again last night. It’s utterly freezing in here, after all. If it snowed, it’ll be hell of a hockey game today.  
I step into the front room right as Mrs. Snow vanishes into thin silver wisps of smoke and nothing else. My eyes wander over the floor, over to the couch, and she’s laying there on her side with her black hair covering her face. She never took off her clothes; but she lays there with her knees knitted together and her hands hanging off over the edge of the couch.  
I creep closer to her and crouch down before her face. Her eyes are sealed shut: the scar meanwhile seems to have receded into her skin. Maybe it’s just the darkness covering her face but it’s hard to say. After she behaved as though I had shocked her last night, I’m not taking any chances in hopes for a closer look.  
“Maya--” I whisper to her. Her hair smells of mildew--who knows when she last washed it and I know laying in the storm drain doesn’t count. I feel gross and dirty after I had been sweating a bunch following a concert: I can’t imagine not washing to such an extent that I smell so utterly foul.  
“Maya--?” I repeat myself. “Maya, can you hear me?”  
Her breathing picks up like she can’t hardly keep up with something. I linger back to give her space.  
“Maya?” I say in a low voice. Her lips part by just a sliver but it’s enough for her to whimper something.  
“What’s that?” I gently ask her. She breathes it out again and I lean in closer to her face.  
“Maya?”  
“--va--vat-her--”  
“Huh?”  
She sighs and closes her mouth so as to swallow. I watch her return to sleep. I was going to tell her about my leaving in about an hour and a half or so, but I guess I’ll have to leave a note.

**********************************

At a quarter to ten, I step out to the gray morning in my parka over my leather jacket, and my big black boots, and with my mask, my stick, and my skates slung over my shoulder. It’s quite the grim day here in upstate New York to everyone else, but to me, it’s the perfect day for playing hockey with my guys, the other four members of my little club, the Frozen Circle Jerks.  
I wind through the courtyard to the front of the property, and I recognize Spence’s old rust colored car parked at the curb, and Spence himself leaned up against the panel next to the rear passenger door. He’s about five years younger than me but he looks like he’s got about five years on me with the cowlicks of silver hair near his temples and peppered throughout his shoulder length dark brown hair. His skin’s also a lot more pallid than mine, and he’s got those high Germanic cheekbones that remind me of Lars and brilliant blue eyes.  
“Joey Belladonna, I’ve been wondering about you as of late,” he greets me with a mischievous smirk upon his face once I come within earshot.  
“Well, Spencer Morrison,” I retort to him as I round the door of the trunk to lay down my stick, my skates, and my mask, “let’s just say... things didn’t go quite as planned in Anthrax.”  
“Oh, really?” He raises his eyebrows at me, stunned.  
“Yeah. It was a total shock to me, too. I don’t know what was going through anyone’s minds, either. Jonny Z just told me I was out as lead singer.”  
He gapes at me, shocked.  
“Well, shit, man.” He folds his arms over his chest. “What’re you gonna do now?”  
“I dunno,” I confess, closing the lid. “But I have to do something, though. You know, with my voice and my drumming and whatnot.”  
I run my fingers through the hair on the side of my head, which is still a little bit damp from my shower last night. I hope it dries out by the time we start playing.  
“I assume we’re gonna go pick up the three B’s?” I ask him.  
“Oh, yeah. Barney and Billy are over at Brick’s place right now. They’ve got breakfast, too.”  
“Good, I’m starving--” I climb into the passenger seat and we drive four blocks from the complex to Brick’s small blue and black house nestled in the trees overlooking the black waters. I dare not tell Spence about Maya given I’d have to retell it three more times. I’ll probably break it about her when we’re at the rink.  
He pulls up to the curb, and the tires slip out a bit at the feeling of black ice on pavement.  
“Be careful getting out, man,” he advises me once I open the door. Indeed, I feel a bit of ice underneath me and I’m somewhat inclined to slide over to the front door, but if I’m gonna do that, it’d be on my skates.  
I’m cautious to climb onto the curb and that’s when the front door swings open up the walkway. Barney’s gray eyes glimmer against the blanket of snow around me on the front yard.  
“There he is!” he declares. “Our captain!”  
“Oh, captain, my captain,” I retort back to him, and I catch a whiff of coffee once I approach the front step.  
“Oh my God, it smells so good in there.”  
“Yeah, come on in, man--” Billy calls from the foyer. I’m greeted by a wave of warmth and the smells of coffee and bacon in conjunction with each other. I take off my coat once Spence steps into the house and shuts the door right behind me. Barney and Billy Grey are two brown haired brothers, three years separating them both, and yet they live down the block from me in what they call “the House of Grey” even though the house itself is an ugly olive green color; Spence, meanwhile, is their cousin on their mom’s side, the side bestowing them their pale gray eyes, and even though their dad’s from Wales, they both sound like they walked right out from the City.  
I turn to the kitchen table right in front of me and my old friend Brick hunched over the newspaper with a cup of coffee in hand. His real name is Walter but I have referred to him as Brick since we met in sixth grade, because he’s always struggled with his weight and he broke more windows than me growing up. If I was the skinny black haired Indian boy, he’s the chunky sandy blond French Canadian who could never run too fast. Thus, I always told him it’s better if he’s goalie.  
He lifts his head to see me and extends a hand for me.  
“’Mornin’, Joe,” he greets me, taking my hand.  
“Hey, man--” I lean in once our fingers interlock in a tight curl. Then I take my seat at the head of the table, my being captain and everything.  
“Alright, so today’s just practice, right?” Billy asks me as he reaches for a clean mug from one of the cabinets.  
“Every day’s practice,” Barney points out to him.  
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re part of the NHL,” I join in with a chuckle. “I’d like for us to go to the next level at some point, though. You know. See what we can actually do.”  
Brick hesitates with the cup of coffee near his mouth.  
“Wait, what?”  
“He got fired,” Spence says in a low voice as he enters the kitchen behind me.  
“Oh, man, I’m so sorry to hear that.” I nod my head and show them a grim smile.  
“Ah shit, man, that blows!” Barney declares.  
“Holy crap, what was going on?” Billy demands, taking a seat in between me and Brick.  
“I wish I knew. Jonny called me up the day before yesterday--before my birthday, too, no less--”  
“Happy birthday, by the way,” Brick interjects.  
“Thank you,” I can’t help but smile at that. “But anyways, Jonny Z called me up and said the decision was unanimous and you’re done, and it was like everything went sideways from there.”  
“God... talk about getting fucked up,” Brick notes. “Worse than any fucking up courtesy of the Man in Black.”  
I nibble on my bottom lip and glance up at Barney and Billy: the Man in Black, which haunts my nightmares whenever I’m without my dream catcher, resides at the House of Grey.  
“Have you guys been seeing the Man in Black lately?” I ask Barney.  
“Like once and it was the other night. I remember telling Bill about it and he rolled his eyes at it. As long as we’ve lived in the House of Grey, he’s never believed in the Man in Black.”  
“It’s probably just the old man down the lane here,” Billy scoffs.  
“Be careful,” Barney warns, “if the old man down the street wants to fuck us up, what makes you think the Man in Black won’t want to do the same?”  
“I still don’t understand the gist of the Man in Black.”  
“You know how he is, Bill.”  
“Oh, come on, Barney--you and Joe here actually believe in that mumbo-jumbo?”  
“It ain’t mumbo-jumbo,” I point out to him, shifting my weight as Barney sets a mug of coffee before me.  
“Hey, I’d believe Joey if I were you, little bro. The man lives with four ghosts and a dark cloud.”  
“Yeah, he sleeps with a dream catcher because they’ll haunt his dreams,” Brick adds.  
“I actually burn incense for one of them.”  
“Is that--Vera?” Brick asks me.  
“Nah, that’s the little girl who stares at me whenever I doze off. I’m talking about Mrs. Snow.”  
“Mrs. Snow, that’s it!”  
“Besides, the old man isn’t that old,” I remind them, “he just has a family is all.”  
“Not that old?” Billy flashes me a perplexed look.  
“He’s Joey and Brick’s age,” Barney adds.  
“He just acts like an old man,” I elaborate, bringing the mug up to my mouth. “He’s got like five kids or something like that. Total curmudgeon...” I take a sip of the hot black coffee and that by itself is enough to motivate me and wake me to a better day ahead, probably more than a little game of hockey.

**********************************

A thick gray cloud covers the late morning sun as we set up on the rink on the edge of town, coincidentally en route to Black Orchid. Sometimes we like to come out here for hours on end, all the way until dinner time, but we’re often so pumped with piss, vinegar, and adrenaline that we don’t eat dinner until after ten o’clock at night.  
I had taken off my boots and laced up my black leather skates, and stepped out onto the rink first with my stick over my shoulder. The edge of the blade grinds over the ice as I make my way to the middle of the rink.  
“Ice, ice, baby!” I declare, my voice echoing over the slick sheet of ice before me. I spin around to face my guys. “Who’s got the puck?”  
“The Barn-meister!” Spence calls out from behind the wall.  
I then feel something grab onto my shoulder and whirl me around. I recognize Maya’s gaunt face glaring back at me, her eyes wide and shimmering bright blue. Her veins are poking out of her skin, bright blue as if made from electronics. Her pale skin almost looks artificial. Her black hair is standing on end as if she’s being electrocuted.  
But the very sight of her is enough to make me almost lose my balance.  
“JESUS FUCK, MAYA!” I shout. I brandish my stick around and she vanishes into thin air. Breathing heavy, I regather myself and turn around right as Barney, Billy, Spence, and Brick are skating towards me with looks of concern upon their faces.  
“You alright?” Brick asks me.  
“I think so?” I reply. “I almost slipped and lost my balance.”  
“Don’t do that,” Barney teases me. I roll my eyes and chuckle at him.  
“Let’s just get to it,” Billy suggests to us, pulling away to the other side of the rink, and Brick and Barney follow suit. But Spence lingers in front of me with his eyebrows knitted together.  
“Who’s Maya?” he asks in a low enough voice for them not to hear us.  
“I’ll tell you later,” I vow to him, slipping my mask over the crown of my head.  
I don’t know what that was all about, but that has me concerned now. Oops.


	10. (midnight at denny's)

“Alright, good work, guys. Let’s call it a night and have some munch.”  
We finished up later in the evening, well after the sun went down behind the forests on the far side of town. We had spent the first two hours at the rink without our knee pads, and then by lunch, Brick hurried back home real quick to fetch his. Meanwhile, the rest of us roamed about the slick ice surface with very little protection aside from our gloves and our masks. The rain and snow the past couple of days made the ice extra slick so we were able to almost glide about the surface like five ghosts.  
But after the scare I had had with the apparition, specter, thing, whatever it was, of Maya before me, I roamed about the rink with my back erect for most of the afternoon: once the sun went down, I ducked low and gave my ass, my thighs, and my knees a strengthening. At one point during the middle of the afternoon, when no one was looking, I stuck the hockey stick in between my thighs and reached back for a feeling of my own ass.  
Getting tighter, I can tell.  
Bigger? I can’t tell.  
We played for quite a bit longer: now it’s almost ten at night. Now we’re all famished and now it’s dark.  
Once we all had unlaced our skates and headed back to Spence’s car, I called shotgun and now here I am sinking down in the passenger seat next to the man himself. Brick, Barney, and Billy are crowded in the back behind us.  
“I say we go to Denny’s up the road here,” he suggests once he shuts the door behind him.  
“Works for me,” Brick says aloud.  
But on the way there, all I can think about is seeing Maya there on the ice. How did she even get there? And what was going on with her skin and her hair? It made no sense, and I’m unsure if I’ll find the right answer for any aspect of it.  
My heart hammers inside of my chest. It’s been a long day, but for good reason, though. Hockey is my other love after all.  
I really, really want to touch myself right about now to rid of the extra adrenaline but it’s too close of a spot here with the boys and I don’t want to shoot all over the upholstery. It’s not worth it at the moment. And I’m not risking it back at my place, not with Maya there and Mrs. Snow manifesting in the mirror behind me. Maybe when I have a moment in the bathroom I can.  
In fact, once we reach the Denny’s about a block from Black Orchid, the first thing I do is run to the men’s room. We’re a block away from the girls there. From Morgan, Lizzy, Cindy, the Jacksons, and Gwendolyn. Gimme a minute. Scratch that, gimme five minutes.  
I take the stall closest to the door and unbutton my jeans. Down my hand goes into my underwear.  
I sigh through my parted lips: at least I’m alone. Poking and stroking right there on my dick. I lean back against the cold metal for another shot of adrenaline.  
I’ve got it now. At least I think I do. Every stroke of my thumb is like a shot of lightning right across my mind. I can think a lot clearer now.  
I have to help Maya somehow, but I can’t if the slightest bit of adrenaline is enough to give me an erection. Maybe if I can have Lars assist me, we can uncover her past and her secrets. I hope I see him again because I don’t think I can do this solo.  
I take my pants off all the way and once I have my belt around my knees, I reach over for some paper to clean up. Could be worse: one time at home, a few days following when I first moved into the complex, I came so hard, I had to mop up the kitchen floor and scrub part of my carpet. Ever since then I have secretly referred to myself as Chief Big Way: I’m that Indian boy with everything I could ever possibly need in the biggest way possible. It’s even funnier because Gwendolyn called me the Italian Stallion.  
Too much. I’m too much even for myself at times.  
When I step out of the stall, I head over to the sink to wash up, and for a split second, I swear I catch a glimpse of Maya and Mrs. Snow in the reflection of the mirror before me. I glance over my shoulder. Nothing there.  
I shrug it off and proceed to clean off the little sticky bit that spilled over onto my fingers. I then cup my hands for a bit of water in my palm and run my fingers through my hair. Yeah, that’s a lot better.  
Once I dry up with one of the paper towels, I head back out and make my way over to the booth tucked in the far corner of that front room. I have a seat on the end next to Brick, who’s next to Spence, who’s next to Barney and Billy; they’re eyeing me like they have something to tell me.  
“What?”  
“So do you like her?” Brick raises his eyebrows at me. I hesitate with my hands on the lapels of my coat.  
“The fuck do you mean?”  
“Do you like her?”  
“Who?”  
Spence shows me a smirk. And then it dawns on me.  
“You told them?” I demand. He gives me a shrug.  
“It is what it is. If our captain’s with a girl, we should know.”  
I fetch up a sigh and that’s when the young blonde waitress steps over to our table. I don’t care if it’s getting late: I’m having coffee.  
Once she makes the rounds of the table, the five of us are left alone with that hanging thought.  
“Okay, first of all,” I begin, bowing my head even though the only other patrons are two truck driver looking guys about two tables away from us, “I have no romantic attachment to her--just gonna clear that up right now.”  
“Are you sure?” Brick asks me with a chuckle.  
“Positive. I’m not joking, man. I don’t even know how old she is--for all I know, she could still be a teenager.”  
The smirks and smiles from the table; Barney and Billy even gape at each other.  
“Two nights ago, I was taking a walk to get something to eat and I had an encounter with the Grim Reaper.”  
“Again?” Barney’s stunned.  
“Yeah. Dude, she’s only just to remind me of the fact there’s a piece of earth underneath me. Aside from that, I dunno what else she wanted me. But anyways, I looked across the street and I found her laying there in the storm drain--and you know, it was pouring rain the other night, too--and she had a rope around her ankles. For all I know, someone could’ve beaten the holy hell from her.”  
The waitress returns with five glasses of crystal clear water accompanied with slivers of ice near the surface. I take a drink--God, I’m so thirsty!  
“So what’d you do?” asks Billy, running the tip of his finger around the rim of his glass.  
“I took her home. Well, not entirely. I was over by the strip club over here--”  
“Black Orchid?” Brick fills in for me.  
“Yeah. And it was the only place I could see offhand, and so I took her there.”  
“I was wondering where you were yesterday morning,” Spence pipes up. “I was gonna take you over to Rochester to meet some lady friends of mine.”  
“Lady friends?” I ask him, holding my glass at the base; the waitress returns again with our mugs of black coffee and a little white china dish filled with a pile of those stumps of creamer.  
“Sonia and Marcia. They’re sisters from the magnificent Pacific Northwest, Oregon.”  
“What’re they doing here upstate?”  
“Marcia works at a bakery that apparently is trying to branch out over here. To get an idea of the area, she got a job at this upholstery place over in Rochester. Sonia’s an actress trying to bring her one woman show from the left coast to the right coast.”  
“They’re sisters, you said?”  
“Yeah. And they’re living in a pad a lot like yours, overlooking the lake. What’re you doin’--manana?”  
“Manana? More than likely nada, unless my parents come back home early.”  
“I’ll take you to meet them if you’d like.”  
“I’d love to.” I take a sip of the coffee: perfectly beany and rich, just how I like it. “So at any rate, I guess all the girls there had just gotten off their shift because they all had their clothes on and they were extra nice to me and her. We spent the night and I told them it was birthday so they even threw a little party for me. But then I took her home and--” I shook my head as I hold the mug with both hands and rest my elbows on the table top.  
“What?” Brick asks me.  
“Whenever I ask her if she wants anything, like something to eat or whatever, she refuses. I mean, full on refuses. She will not eat anything. I don’t when the last time she ate was, so last night I was like ‘Jesus, she’s gotta be starving.’ You know, if I don’t eat for a while, I almost feel carsick. But she turns down any offer. She turned down offers over at the strip joint, and she turned it down from me. I don’t wanna force her to eat, but I also can’t do that to her. I can’t let her die.”  
I bring the mug closer to my lips but I don’t take a sip.  
“She’s got this weird scar on her forehead, too,” I recall, running my index finger along my forehead, underneath my bangs. “A perfect horizontal line, like a lobotomy scar. When I found her, I could even see it in the darkness. Very prominent, and very strange.”  
“She wouldn’t tell you about that, either?” Billy frowns at that.  
“What do you think you can do for her?” asks Spence, as he stirs in a packet of Sweet n’ Low into his coffee.  
“No idea.”  
“Well, I hope you can find something for her, dude. She sounds—interesting.”  
“Interesting, yes. An unlikely wild card in my life, definitely for sure. But at the same time--and I can totally sense this, too--she needs help. You know, I got close to her face to check out the scar on her forehead and she acted like I just electrocuted her. She spent the rest of yesterday evening with her hands over her face. So she needs the help of professionals, but not me. I’m no pro at this sort of thing.”  
The four of them glance at one another again.  
“Well, in your defense, Joe, I wouldn’t know the first thing about that, either,” Barney confesses.  
“If it were me, I would take her to the cops,” suggests Billy, “but other than that, I wouldn’t know what else to do.”  
“Nah, the fuzz wouldn’t do her any justice,” Barney points out.  
“They really wouldn’t, either,” I add to that before taking another sip of coffee, “I can barely get three words out of her, so I dunno if they’ll be the ones to pry answers out of her.”  
“But that’s what I’d do, though,” Billy insists. “Or we can invite her home with us.”  
“Are you out of your mind?” Barney scoffs at him.  
“What? She’s obviously holding Joe back at the moment. We can probably take better care of her at the House of Grey.”  
“We’ve got the Man in Black there, though.”  
“Will ya stop with the Man in Black?”  
“Hey, I saw Vera last night before I went to bed,” I wag my finger at Billy, “and I just about shit my pants. I can only imagine her scaring the hell out of Maya herself given how close Vera likes to get to me.”  
“You’d rather she be staying in the realm of a malevolent ghost that causes nightmares?” Barney looks at me, appalled.  
“I’d rather she be in the realm of just one ghost than many, a few of which are still freaking me out every time I see them, that is Vera and Mrs. Snow. The Boy With No Hands, too. And besides, it’s not like the Man in Black shows up all the time, either. At least, I hope not.”  
I take another sip of my coffee before speaking again.  
“Besides, you guys have a house,” Brick adds. “Joey just has his little bachelor pad.”  
“Yeah, it’s just me there. She seemed pretty comfortable over at the strip joint because there was eight of us there surrounding her. Just from what I’ve seen anyways. She could use the extra company over at the House of Grey.”  
Barney sighs through his nose and looks at Billy for a good long moment. Within time, he purses his lips and picks up his water glass for a big swig. And then he nods in affirmation.  
“Alright,” he finally says. “We’ll swing by your place, Joe, and take her home with us.”  
And right at that moment, the waitress arrives once again with our late night dinner. I have a feeling I’ll be eating more midnights at Denny’s like this from this point forth as I pick up a piping hot French fry and blow on it before dipping it into my ketchup.  
“I should also add,” I start up again, holding the fry before my lips with my thumb and my index finger.  
Billy lifts his gaze from his steak and Barney from his putting his napkin in his lap.  
“--you guys want to convince her to take a bath or a shower, something. I don’t know when’s the last time she ate, nor do I know when’s the last time she bathed.”  
“You found her in a storm drain, too,” Spence recalls, picking up his spoon.  
“Yeah, when I got close to her face, she smelled--you guys know that nasty, earthy smell you get from wet leaves? Like during this time of year when the leaves are falling and they get wet from the first rains, and they have that smell to them? It’s like that.”  
“Oh, God.” Billy almost gags at that.  
“It’s pretty intense, too, like my eyes started watering when I got close to her face. So--yeah. I couldn’t convince her to eat but how she feels about cleaning up is a mystery.”  
We fall back into momentary silence and then Spence starts talking about something completely different. We’re just five friends having dinner together, and that’s all I can ask for at the moment. But I still think about Maya and that apparition of her on the rink. Maybe she was trying to grab my attention from the fact she’s back at my place all alone with four ghosts? Who knows, and this fried chicken and French fries are too good to think about anything else.  
Once our stomachs are full and slightly distended, and we all pitch in for the bill and the tip for the waitress, Spence takes all of us back home, starting with Brick’s house, and then to my place so Barney and Billy can take Maya back with them.  
I left Maya alone for hours on end today. I hope she was able to find something to eat and something to do all day because I feel terrible about it now.  
But when I unlock the front door, I find she had turned on the light and I can see the front room had been cleaned, the carpet vacuumed, the kitchen floor swept, the top of the table wiped off, all of it clean and smelling of lemons.  
“Maya?” I call out. A brief moment of silence, followed by the sight of her stepping out of the bathroom, still wearing the same clothes as the night I found her but with rubber gloves on her hands. Barney and Billy congregate at the front door while I set down my things behind the couch. I then check out my chair and the couch itself, and I find she vacuumed and straightened both out for me. I then take a look at the phone: she even cleaned the spaces between the buttons on the keypad and the curls of the cord!  
She enters the room as she peels off the gloves with a nonchalant look upon her face.  
“Did--Did you clean my apartment?” I ask her, setting down the phone receiver.  
“I did,” she replies, her expression never changing. “Top to bottom. I even vacuumed your mattress and cleaned the loo.”  
“Thank you,” I can hardly speak from the feeling of my heart skipping a few beats. I shake my head and turn my attention to the two of them. “These are my friends, Barney and Billy. They wanna take you home with them.”  
“I would love to,” she answers, the tone of her voice never changing from that gentle soft tone.  
“We live just down the street, too,” Barney explains, gesturing out the door. “So if you wanna--you know, visit Joey--you can just mosey on over here.”  
I swallow, feeling my face grow warm. I run my hand through my hair as she steps closer to them.  
“You guys have a good night,” I tell the three of them as Billy coaxes her out of my apartment.  
“Take care, Cup of Joey,” is the last thing Barney tells me with a wink and a smile.  
“You, too, Barn-meister.”  
With nothing more, the front door closes behind them, meaning I’m alone again. I sigh right then with the decision to turn in for the night. Maybe I should tell my parents about her.


	11. (the house of grey)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We're all alone in the city,  
My hands are stoned with pity,  
I could get by or get high with fifty [yeah]  
And I don't feel pretty... today.” -Otep, “House of Secrets”

The Man in Black kept his distance from my dreams all the way to the sunrise. I had figured it was because of the extra presence within the House of Grey down the block, but I also have my doubts about that, given the fact he follows me to wherever he damn well pleases. There was also one time I stayed overnight with the Greys and the Man in Black lingered in the deepest corners of the awning covering my front porch. He lingered there like a spider monkey, down and out towards me with his spidery fingers extended out to my face. I had to back up and then hold my breath before I even stepped in the house, and at that point, it felt as though my lungs would explode on me.  
Every time I saw the Man in Black from thence forth, I have this pervading feeling that he’s going to reach down my throat and yank out my lungs. I only saw him in his full apparition form twice more after that but it was enough for me to be wary of him.  
But nevertheless, I can’t truly say if it’s the fact Maya’s over there now or something else. I was fresh meat to him once: maybe she’s new prey for him, I can’t say, I’m only speculating here.  
The first time I encountered the Man in Black was when I first joined Anthrax, and in such a fashion that is forever etched into my memory bank. We were down in the City making arrangements and I had to be there: I had just learned that Scott, Danny, Frankie, and Charlie had been bunking in a small three bedroom flat on the edge between the Bronx and Yonkers, that one part of town that’s mostly white people and yet they managed to find that place; and yet they invited me to spend the next couple of nights with them. I was also reminded that Metallica had been staying with them as well and this was how I began knowing about Metallica and of Lars’ name in particular. They were all two nights from flying out west to California to meet up with the boys from Guns N’ Roses.  
On my second evening in that apartment, and the night before we all had to leave, I had some time to myself: Scott and Frankie had just left the room, and I had no idea where Charlie and Danny had scampered off to, which meant I had the room left to me and thus I could have a moment alone. There was nothing more in that room than a dusty old olive green couch with cushions so lumpy I thought I would sink into one side if I sat down wrong, and a singular bare light bulb suspended from the ceiling overhead: I don’t think the power was even on then, and this was in late September so the night began falling upon us much sooner than before.  
But I took a seat there on the right side of the sofa and crossed my legs right as James Hetfield stepped into the room right before me. He towered over me with his long lanky legs and lengthy golden blond wavy hair, but he greeted me with the biggest most beaming smile I had ever seen on a man.  
“The new guy, right?” he asked me.  
“Yeah. I’m Joey. I also go by just Joe, too.”  
“Okay, just Joe,” he smartly said. “Mind if I have a seat next to you here?”  
“Not at all.”  
He took a seat next to me and it felt as though I was lifting off of the cushion. I asked him how he and Metallica had found their way to New York City, and this was how I learned about their tape No Life ‘Til Leather and Jonny circulating it about the area.  
I had often heard about James from a few fans and even from Scott and Charlie, in how he always kept a brave, oft stern face, and it always seemed like such an insurmountable task to even so much as pry a smile much less a few words from him. So for me to be immersed in this was almost shocking for me. At the same time, I wanted everyone to witness this James, this side of him that seemed more than happy to be with me there on the couch in this little apartment that had no power or running water. At peace, and without a care in the world. Not the taciturn James I was warned about before: he kept a smile upon his face and let out a twinkling little chuckle every time I had a filthy quip to throw out at every chance I got.  
In fact I felt so comfortable with him that I leaned in closer to him; that beckoned a crossing of his legs and a slight unzipping of his jacket.  
Once the shadows had grown so long there in the room all around us, and the darkness covered half of his face while the remaining twilight reflected onto him so he resembled to the Phantom of the Opera, he offered me something to drink. I was a few weeks from turning twenty-four, but I still resisted because I also knew about Metallica’s nickname. I shook my head in refusal.  
He insisted. And yet I still resisted. I didn’t want to be around that. After I refused a fourth time, he fell silent. It was that moment I witnessed that stone cold face. The shadow casting over him wasn’t helping matters, either. That cold steely look was etched into my memory bank.  
And then out of the corner of my eye, from the shadows next to his head, something bent off to the side and over the back of the sofa and onto the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was my eyes playing tricks on me or the shadow increasing up against the fading light, but it was a significant movement. And it was significant enough to cause the hair on my arms to stand on end, my heart to pound away inside my chest, and my stomach to fly right up into my throat. I leaned back away from him; worse, his expression never changed as the shadows coalesced and sank behind the back of the sofa.  
He never brought it up again, and I never told anyone about it, either. In fact, I never saw it again, especially once the couch and the apartment themselves fell out of the picture for the time being. But when I moved to the complex in the nicer part of Oswego to be closer to my friends, I recognized that very sofa in the living room in the House of Grey. The house itself has two rooms, one for the each of them, the tiniest living room I’ve ever seen, a kitchenette which also serves as the dining room and the laundry room; across from Billy’s room is the bathroom and a closet with four shelves. Then downstairs in the basement is a back up generator for whenever the power goes out during a blizzard. I don’t really know how it works but I do know it involves three inches of hydrogen plasma and the winds from the lake effect storms. And when the power does go out, it shines this eerie bluish green glow through the cracks in the floorboards.  
I’ll never forget seeing the couch for the first time right there in the living room: I could tell they had cleaned it up before bringing it into the house. When I took a seat there on one of the cushions, it again felt like I was about to sink into it. The sole differences were cleaning it took some of the olive color and left behind this funky, aged sausage color in its wake, and I got a really uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach sitting there. I couldn’t put my finger on it, either. But Billy insisted it was fine, even though I dared not tell them about that evening in the City wherein I watched part of James’ shadow splinter off and disappear behind the couch. It was there I started to wonder what had happened to this couch in that two year frame.  
In fact, when I spent the night there the next week, and the power had gone out during a snowstorm, my curiosity festered and expanded. I think that was also the first time I ever referred to their place as the House of Grey, and not just from that inconspicuous gray on the outside. It was a hockey night, taking place right after my spending time with Anthrax in the studio for Spreading the Disease, and I kind of knew I would feel too tired once the time warranted it: so I took my pillow with me to the City and then back to the House of Grey.  
Since I felt exhausted from two straight days of ass-whooping, I lay down there on that ugly sofa and fell asleep once my head hit the pillow. In circumstances like that, I would’ve slept all the way through the night; but at some point during the night, I awoke to an icy tingling sensation on the soles of my feet, like they fell asleep. But when I regained consciousness, the feeling spread all over my toes and the tops of my feet and up my ankles, like I waded through nearly frozen water. I could hardly breathe, either: it felt like someone sitting upon my chest. I finally opened my eyes and glanced down at my legs, and caught sight of him.  
The light from the generator downstairs shone over him so I caught a good look of him. He resembled to James with his long stringy black and silver hair down past his shoulders, and his long narrow body and face, but his eyes were vacant and soulless, machine like in fact, and the tattered black clothes cloaking his body floated back from him like he was underwater. He floated over me like a low cloud of fog, and he reached out to me. His hand and his fingers crept out towards my face, and I started to gag at the unholy feeling of his smoky fingers brushing over me.  
I didn’t know what he wanted from me, especially when the sallow skin on his face melted away to reveal the bones beneath. I ducked underneath the blankets and rolled onto my side so I wouldn’t have to see him again. In hindsight, it was a miracle I managed to fall back asleep because I kept seeing those black eyes and then their melting into mere sockets. I also had a dream so horrifying that I can’t even recall it. I awoke the next morning trembling and five seconds from pissing myself. In one hand, I’m glad I didn’t tell Barney and Billy about that night because I knew right away they wouldn’t believe me for a hot minute.  
“Oh, come off of it, Joe!” I pictured Barney saying with a slap of the knee and a hoot of laughter. “You were probably just dreaming!”  
Yeah, I pictured Barney saying that, always the more open-minded of the two brothers. Then again, the very next day, Barney and I talked about the Man in Black over lunch: he even went so far to call it the most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life.  
“Where could it have come from?” he asked me, and all I could do was shrug in response. I had no idea how, or why, the Man in Black showed up there at the house. Barney later told Billy, and as figured, he scoffed at the very notion; but I believed him all the way.  
And ever since then, every time I swing by the House of Grey, I’ll stride past that sofa and I’ll feel that chill again, that same icy sensation on the soles of my feet, but all over, from my stomach and all the way into my bones. Sometimes, during the summertime and the spring, they lug out their porch swing, and I’ll stand on the porch, and have a glimpse at it. That blocky wooden bench suspended from a pair of silver chains, quietly swaying in the gentle breeze, and I’ll feel him there. Glaring at me, wanting the breath from my lungs, or so I think. I don’t know what he wants from me. It’s a nagging, persisting feeling that eats at me every time I even so much as think of spending the night at the House of Grey.  
Barney gets it but Billy always lends an eye roll accompanied with a scoff.  
“Who is this Man in Black?” he always demands from us.  
“We wouldn’t really know,” Barney always confesses.  
“Yeah, we can’t really say if he’s a ghost or a shadow or what,” I add to it.  
“You guys know ghosts aren’t real and shadows can’t detach from entities, right?” He likes to throw that one out to us.  
“This is very real, Bill,” Barney vows.  
“It really is!” I exclaim. “He even reached for me!”  
“Yeah, but it was dark, though. You could’ve been seeing things, Joe. You know how your eyes mess with you in total darkness.”  
“Yeah, but it wasn’t totally dark, though. He was practically glowing from the generator.”  
“Uh-huh, right.”  
And after that, Barney pulled me aside and took my hand for a shake, and whispered, “what happens here stays here. No going around and telling anyone about it.”  
But ever since then, I not only let one slip once in a while but I never sleep too far away from my dream catcher. The Man in Black’s impending presence and the feeling of him inside my mind when I sleep is enough for me to not take any chances. And yet, I still wonder about Maya and if she saw what I saw that night, and if she’s in good spirits there in the House of Grey.  
And if anyone is going to blame anyone for not speaking up about it, they can blame me.


	12. (part one) the bennett sisters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got an alert from southern california edison saying we could undergo a third power outage on Monday--I guess this upcoming windstorm is supposed to be pretty bad this time around; I low-key had a feeling this’d be the case, too, like they’d dick us around a couple of times before the real trouble hits--but if there is, enjoy this chapter for the time being. It’s extra long, too, and so I decided to split it in half. 😘😘

Maya is firmly upon my mind as I’m getting dressed and slipping my boots onto my feet before heading out for the day. Apparently it had snowed little flurries last night and there are more coming for tonight; after Spence called me, I wanted to have a move on out of Oswego and over to Rochester to meet these two girls he had told me about last night. I make a mental note to ask him their names again, but then again, they might tell me their names as soon as we step through the door.

I know it’s cold so I’ve got my good gloves on and my scarf wrapped around my neck and tucked underneath the lapels of my coat. I am still in disbelief that she cleaned the place from top to bottom, even with all that time on her hands. The cleaning lady Anthrax had in the Bahamas couldn’t even get it that well in more than that time. And now she’s probably helping Barney and Billy keep the House of Grey clean in the most down to the ground way possible. All I can do now is have a good time for a good time.

I lock the door behind me, and the I head out into the snow and the gray. It’s definitely upon me, that icy feeling hanging down from the gray sky. My hope is that Spence and I find something to eat for ourselves, if not in Rochester on the way there: I am absolutely starving at the moment.

And I still haven’t found my pocket knife. Damn it.

I’ve got my head bowed and my hands stuffed in my pockets even with the gloves on. Spence is once again posted up at the curb awaiting me: I round the front end of the car and throw open the passenger door, and then I collapse into the seat next to him. I groan from the intense cold on my face before giving a toss of my hair to keep it back from my face in the wake of the wind.

“Cold?” he asks me once I yank the door closed behind me.

“Could use a cup of Joey,” I retort back to him, pulling the seat belt across the my chest.

“Cup of Joey and a dispensing of Spence?”

“I dunno about that last bit,” I confess with a shrug.

“Oh, come on,” he teases me.

“Alright, fine,” I admit with an exasperated sigh. “A cup of Joey, a dispensing of Spence, and a little bit of--what’d you say their names were again?”

“Marcia and Sonia?”

“Marcia and Sonia, that was it!”

He tugs on the parking lever and we roll forward, cautiously from the damp spots all over the pavement before us; we make the round of the complex back to the entrance, and before we pull out to the street, I peer out the window down the street. The House of Grey has a blanket of pure white snow on the rooftop, and the windows are dark but it’s still quite early: Barney and Billy probably aren’t even awake at the moment.

Spence drives us along the road winding out of Oswego, through the trees, and all along the edge of the lake, the vast sheet of inky black waters to the right of us. Even from here, the bit road right above the shoreline, I can tell the little path I like to take walks on is blanketed with snow.

At one point, the sun breaks out from behind the gray clouds and shines onto my face and my shoulders. That feeling, the one of the cold sun on my black hair and my olive skin, and the fact I’m surrounded by frigid, unforgiving lake effect snow is enough to make me feel alone. Even with Spence next to me in the driver’s seat, I feel like I’m walking this path into this new chapter of my life all alone, this new chapter without the band that had welcomed me with open arms four years ago, this new chapter that includes driving over to Rochester for a visit of these two girls at their upholstery shop.

I keep my arms folded over my stomach in hopes to keep it quiet. So hungry...

It’s a bit of a drive over to Rochester, too, through all these trees and without any place to stop. This is going to suck so much; and I usually like this drive, too, because it’s only a little more than an hour away. I keep telling myself that it’s only an hour, but it eats away at me. I have to remember to eat something before I leave the next time I plan on going anywhere because this will kill me if I don’t.

“You know,” he tells me at one point, “I’ve got some Good and Plenties in the glove compartment if you’re hungry.” It’s that moment I start missing that box of Mike n Ikes back at my place: I shake my head when I remember the trembling sensations and the fact I passed out at Black Orchid.

I have my hands stuffed right into my pockets and I have the lining pressed against my stomach. As long as it doesn’t ache and drive me up the wall, I think I’ll be alright.

In fact, once we’re ten miles out from the bridge over the inlet of pitch dark cold waters, the feeling subsides and I relax a bit. I don’t even feel it once we do reach that bend in the road.

But it returns with a vengeance once we start seeing signs for restaurants and whatnot. I knit my knees together and bow my head.

“It’s alright, man, we’re almost there,” Spence assures me. I squirm in my seat: now it’s starting to hurt me. He takes the first exit from the bridge onto the bustling side streets of the other big city I know about. It hurts me so much that I pay no attention to his pulling up to the curb of wherever we’re headed; the one time I do lift my head is when we pass the street cleaner because even from down the block I can hear its gears turning and the steam inside making those whistling noises. I bring my head back down once we pass it.

Within time, he tugs on the parking brake and kills the engine.

I lift my head for a peek out the window at the two low brick buildings on the corner: I think we’re about three blocks from the heart of downtown because these seem like the kind of buildings that would lead up to the skyline. The one on the left has a big bay window with a sign reading “Smell the Magic — coming soon” in big hot pink letters, and next to that are glass double doors behind a sheet of plastic. Meanwhile, next door, I make out a sign reading “Sew Into You” in fancy black letters over a white background over the wide bright lit windows. Even from the passenger seat, I can make out all the stuff on their shelves.

“This must be the place?” I wonder aloud, clutching at my poor stomach. I want to know about the other place, though.

“The hell it is—come on.” Spence climbs out of the car first and I unbuckle the seat belt using one hand: I stagger out into chilly late morning right as the sun breaks free from behind the low hanging gray clouds once more. I close the door with my hip before I follow him into the building there on the right. He holds the door for me and I step inside first, my legs trembling at the knees all the while like a newborn horse.

To my left stand several shelves stacked with all manner of fabrics, from fine corduroy to the sexiest looking Chinese silk I have ever seen in my life. Next to those shelves are some spools of checkerboard fabric with so many color combinations to choose from that it makes my eyes hurt. Up on the wall is a quilt: in one corner is a big orange star with the names Ashley and Olivia sewn inside with royal blue embroidery; in another corner is a red glittering heart accompanied with a black rose. The quilt itself looks as though it was put together with scrap fabric. Meanwhile, to the right are even more shelves, including two long ones carrying spools of thread. 

This whole entire place is crammed full with sewing stuff: it’s the kind of place my aunt would have a field day in at any given whim.

“Spencer!” a woman’s voice calls from near the back of the room.

“Over here, Marsh!”

I turn my head to see two girls running through the main aisle towards us.

“Marcia—” He gestures to the one on the right skidding to a stop before us first. “—and Sonia.” Then to the one on the left right behind her.

I pressed my hands to my hips even though my knees continue to shake like crazy. I never would’ve guess they’re sisters: they’re almost like the Ridgeways back at Black Orchid in that they both could’ve come from two completely different parents but shared one. Marcia has a short little bob of black hair accentuated with a bright pink headband, and she’s a little bit full figured, probably from a love of baking which I totally get. Meanwhile Sonia has a head full of kinky brown ringlets down past her shoulders and she looks as though she likes to work out with her sinewy arms showing themselves to me from underneath her black shirt. And they’re both wearing black silk shirts with low necklines and black and white checkerboard miniskirts.

“The infamous Bennett sisters,” I declare.

“That’s us,” Marcia replies with a big beaming smile.

“You must be Joseph,” Sonia adds, imitating me and putting her hands on her hips.

“That’s Joey to you.”


	13. part two (the bennett sisters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: remember when I said I split this chapter in half? Yeah, make that three parts. 💜🔥
> 
> “Tonight, I'ma let you be the captain  
Tonight, I'ma let you do your thing, yeah  
Tonight, I'ma let you be a rider.  
Giddyup, babe.”  
-”Rude Boy”, Rihanna

“Have a seat, boys.”  
Sonia invites us over to the back of the place, where we’re met with a rather large rusty loom surrounded by a few rickety looking chairs. It smells of musty old paper and axle grease in here. And while Spence sinks into the chair closest to me, I turn to her with my hand still in my pocket to keep my stomach at ease.  
“Do you have anything to eat?”  
“I thought you’d never ask,” she replies with a smirk: she’s got these cute dimples in her cheeks and a little twinkle in her eye when she smiles. “You know, my sister over here’s a baker. The place next door might have an oven hooked up to the lines. I’d think, anyways.”  
She cranes her neck back for a look at Marcia in the next room over.  
“Hey, Marsh,” she calls, “how we doing on the ovens next door?”  
“Sandra’s got to get the hydrogen in first, though,” she points out from the other room. “She told me it should be hooked up by today, though.”  
Marcia’s head then pokes in the doorway before us.  
“We do have a hot plate on hand, though,” she assures the three of us, “why? Are we feeling a little peaked?”  
I take my hand out of my pocket and slowly raise it up to my chest. She chuckles at me, this little laugh that sounds like glasses clinking together.  
“Okay, come right this way,” she goads me back into the front room with all the stuff. Before I step all the way out of the room, I take a glimpse back at Spence, who gives me a thumbs-up, and Sonia, who winks at me. I follow Marcia past all the spools and a series of tulles of yarn, and into a narrow hallway, which brings us to a rather small room, one with a tiny black fridge and a shelf with a hot plate on it. The whole time we’re headed over here, I’m watching the backs of her thighs move with every step.  
“Are you feeling terribly hungry at all?” she asks me, flicking on the light switch.  
“I didn’t even eat before Spence and I left Oswego earlier,” I confess to her.  
“Oh! Oh, shit--well, I think Sonia and I can arrange something for lunch today. Lars is supposed to swing by like any minute now. That’s what he told us, anyways--”  
That surprises me. “Lars? You guys know Lars?”  
“Like hell we do,” she answers with a grin on her face. “He told me he wants to check out our new gig on the other side of the country.”   
I lay one hand on the top of the small round table to my right; she takes a knee onto the floor before the fridge, opens the fridge door, and delves around for something, but she doesn’t take anything out.  
She sighs. “I thought we had something in here, but apparently, we don’t.” She closes the door and her expression contorts with pain as she struggles to climb to her feet.  
“Here, let me help you--” I lunge for her.  
“No, no--please don’t,” she begs me through gritted teeth; I watch her rise so slowly and I feel the agony in her knees holding up her thick body. She sighs again as she adjusts her shirt.  
“Dude, I gained forty-five pounds this past year,” she confesses, looking wounded.  
“Holy shit.” I gape at her. “May I ask from what?”  
“Bad breakup and just eating a lot,” she replies, and I can see the tears welling up in her eyes, “from both the stress of moving out here from Portland and just from having more money to get more food for myself and Sonia.” She sniffles as she bows her head away from me.  
“I used to be really thin and trim, kind of like how you are, and now look at me--” She rests her hand on her thick waist. “I’ve got this big belly and I’m all covered in stretch marks.”  
I knit my eyebrows together at the sound of that. I watched her walk just a little bit ago: she has a very nice, full shape to her body, and she’s got kind of a pot on her that pokes out a little bit, but then again so does Lars and I think he looks great with it.  
“I didn’t think I’d love someone enough, nor did I think someone could love me enough--now I’ll never find someone. I’m so sorry, I don’t want to drag you into this...” She brings a hand to her left eye, followed by her right.  
“What would you say if,” I pause for a second, thinking of the right words, “I told you... I don’t think you’re all that fat?”  
She lifts her gaze at me, her eyes red and a tear streaking down her face.  
“You don’t?”  
“No, not at all,” I continue, shaking my head. “Actually, come to think of it and giving you a good look, to be honest, I think it’s just--the right amount on you.”  
She sniffles again as she brushes away the tear.  
“You really mean that?”  
“Of course. Hey, look at it this way--it gets fucking cold here upstate. I dunno about Portland, but here it’s like one circle above the Arctic sometimes. Some nights it gets so cold that when I’m sleeping with all my blankets, I feel like it’s not enough because I’m so thin.”  
“You’re beautiful, though,” she admits, sniffling and brushing away another tear. “Just--a gorgeous man. Quite the specimen.”   
She cracks a smile through her tears: when she brushes another one away, she flutters her eyelashes at me. I shrug at her, not knowing what to say right then, and then she giggles at me.  
“You are so sweet. That’s just... so sweet of you.”  
“I try my best,” is all I can think of, giving her another shrug and she giggles at me again. Marcia is pretty cute herself, all full and round. And I mean that when I said I don’t think she’s fat at all: by the look of it, she’s perfectly chubby and soft. I have this feeling within me, one that wants to pull her aside and make her feel all better, but I also want to let her be for a moment.  
But then her eyes wander down to my belt: I follow her gaze there, and then she drops down to my zipper. It’s silent back in there. I don’t even know where Sonia and Spence ran off to, that is if they went anywhere. She has her eyes fixed right on the zipper and the button of my jeans right underneath my coat.  
“You just look--big,” she tells me, her voice breaking. “Big and beautiful.”  
My heart starts to pound more quickly in my chest. She licks her lips as she takes some steps towards me until she’s right there, lingering close to me: I take a quick look down at her chest brushing up against me. I’m trapped in between the table and the wall; I feel her fingers caressing the back of my hand.  
“Not only that but you’re a cute boy,” she remarks in a breathy voice, “--a really, really cute boy.” She leans even closer to my face; I relax every inch of me as she closes her eyes right before she puts her lips on mine. I keep my eyes open just enough to catch the view of the tiny droplets of tears hanging off her eyelashes. Her kiss is firm and strong and passionate, but bittersweet.  
She lets go of my mouth to stare right into my face; the red color has all but disappeared and in its place is the look of someone who wants it.  
“Make love to me,” she pleads. I glance about the room.  
“Here?” I don’t know if we’re the only ones here but I ask her in a whisper.  
“My best friend once had sex with Lars in the back of a bakery.”  
“Lars?!” I’m stunned.  
“Yeah...” She starts to breathe heavy. What do I do.  
“Skip the introductions,” her voice is a near whisper at this point, “I wanna know... how big your dick is.” Her tongue lashes out of her mouth, so close to my own.  
“Make love to me,” she pretty much breathes it into my face, “please. I need you.” Her eyes widen all of a sudden and she backs off. Okay I’m confused.  
“What’s the matter?”  
“I don’t want to do that to you,” she confesses, her voice breaking. “I don’t want to use you. But God--you’re just--you’re so fucking sexy. I want you.”  
I close my mouth to swallow, but it’s difficult from the dry, parched feeling near the back of my throat: I need some water.  
“I feel terrible for this,” she blubbers. “But--Goddammit I want you. I want you so bad.”  
“Baby doll, I’m Italian--this is just another day for me.”  
“That explains... that explains a lot.” I feel her fingers touching over the crotch of my jeans, and then she holds onto my actual crotch. “Is it true that--Italians are as gifted as they claim to be?”  
“What’s your definition of ‘gifted’?”  
I feel her tightening her grip. She parts her lips again as if she’s going to kiss me again. And then there’s a loud THUD! right behind us. She lets go of me to straighten herself out.  
“What was that?” she asks in a hushed voice.  
“Ouch--ouch--fock--focking shit--”  
“The Danish gentleman made his grand entrance,” I announce to her without even turning around. She tosses her hair back from her face and fixes the lapels of her shirt before greeting him there in the hallway.


	14. the bennett sisters (part three)

“Ouch... ouch... ouch... I think I twisted my ankle—ow, oof—“  
Marcia and I round the corner of the doorway to find Lars staggering back a few steps towards the display of spools. I can tell he’s dizzy and his eyes are out of focus, and he’s got one hand clasped upon his forehead. The toe of his left foot is raised up a bit from the cold floor, like he stubbed his toe or bumped his knee on something. His face lights up at the sight of us.  
“Ah! Joey! Marcia! I was hoping I would find the two of you here.”  
“I don’t know if we were awaiting you,” I confess to him in a soft voice. I actually don’t know when Marcia and Sonia were expecting him here at the upholstery place, or why he believed I would be here with the two of them. He pushes a strand of hair back from his face and behind his ear; then he flashes Marcia a friendly grin.  
“Hello, darling,” he greets her, striding closer to her with a bit of a limp. She wipes away another tear from her eye before she kisses him hello and puts an arm around him.  
“Is everything alright?” he asks her, concerned; she sniffles and I can see her resisting more tears.  
“Oh yeah, I was just—I was just having a moment back there.”  
I don’t feel like telling him about what had happened back there, especially since he seems to know her better than me. She could perhaps tell him if and when they have a moment together. He then whirls around towards me, his warm smile never leaving his face.  
“Again, I am so glad you could make it here, Joey,” he greets me. “And I was hoping you would meet Marcia and Sonia at any given point. Like I had a feeling you would cross paths with them at some time in the future.”  
“Why’s that?”  
“Well, since you and Maya have had your encounters in the past couple of days, I thought it would be safe to say that Joey Belladonna would encounter some more people whom I know. It happened with James, it happened with her, and now it happened with the two girls whom I owe a great debt to.”  
“Speaking of which,” Marcia adds, wagging her finger at him, “Sonia wants to talk to you.”  
“She wants to talk to me?”  
“Yes.”  
“About what?”  
“I dunno, but she told me that when you get here, she wants to have a word with you on something. Also, what happened to your foot?”  
“It’s—“ He hesitates, flashing a glimpse at me. His words on wormholes rang through my memory; I can only wonder what he hit and how hard he hit it. “—it’s a long story.”  
He wheels back around into the back part of the shop, the nook with the loom and Sonia and Spence. Meanwhile, behind him and Marcia, I still haven’t eaten anything and my whole stomach is in agony at the moment I follow them out. I have my hand in my pocket, and the lining of the pocket pressed on my stomach to bring some ease.  
Lars steps into the room first, followed by Marcia and myself. Sonia, who’s seated in between the loom and Spence, shoots up to her feet, and rushes over to him.  
“Why, hello, darling,” he greets her, “your sister told me—“  
And then she open hand slaps him across the face. I stop right there. Spence’s mouth gapes open. Marcia gasps.  
“Sonia!” she cries out.  
“You stole—my—Bible!” she barks, shoving a finger into Lars’ face.  
“Yes,” he replies reluctantly, bringing a hand to his face, “and I gave it back to you. I was borrowing it, you know,” She slaps him again, this time on the other side of his face. He blinks several times before returning to her.  
“Okay, that one I definitely did not deserve,” he quips.  
“That’s for leaving me hanging,” she sneers at him.  
“Oh, come on, it was just fun and games between you and me!” he insists.  
“Bullshit.” She slaps him a third time, this time in the same spot as the first strike.  
“Okay, I definitely deserved that one,” he admits, massaging his face and once more blinking several times, “but I swear to you I vowed to give back your Bible and I did.”  
She folds her arms over her chest.  
“Then where is it?”  
“I set it on your nightstand—“  
Meanwhile, I peer around them at Spence, who’s still seated near the loom with his legs crossed and his hands stuffed in his coat pockets. I duck around the bickering Lars and Sonia to join him.  
“Breakfast and a show,” he notes.  
“Yeah, I’ll say.” I bring my arms closer to my stomach. They don’t have anything to eat in the back room there and Marcia was crying in front of me to top it all off.  
“You really should’a eaten those Good and Plenties I told you about,” he tells me in a low voice right in my ear.  
“Dude, those weren’t gonna tithe me over. Now, if it was cashews, I would’ve taken it up.” A quiet but definite rumble fills my ears. Here’s to hoping I don’t pass out again.  
“About to chase something down and kill it?” he wonders to me.  
“With my bear hands. Wild man style.”  
“Belladonna got a bellyache?” Lars cracks right then.  
“Nah, just hungry as hell,” I point out, sitting upright in the chair.  
“We don’t have anything to eat in the back room, either,” Marcia reminds us, folding her arms over her thick middle.  
“Well, we gotta do something, though,” Spence says with concern, “Joe here might wither away into dust and bones.”  
“There is a place we really like called Snarky’s,” suggests Sonia.  
“That’s down in Camillus, though,” Marcia points out. “We’ve only got an hour for lunch.”  
“Speak no more,” Lars declares, reaching down his shirt for his arrowhead pendant. “Stand back and then bow your heads and suck in your stomachs.”


	15. (fright night)

I fall face first onto something soft and shaggy, and smells of lemons and old wood. Everything is dark but none of it assures me that I am in fact dead. I have a dull pain in my back and another one in my hips, and it’s here I know for a fact I know for a fact I’m not dead. I open my eyes to find myself on the olive green carpeted floor of somewhere, and then I remember where Lars sent us to. I lift my head for a look about the place.  
Lars lifts himself up onto his forearms, resembling a sphinx all the while, and tosses his hair back with a flick of his head.  
“Would you like a bit of help, Joey?” he offers to me.  
“Oh... every last part of it,” I reply to him, my hips aching a bit. He picks himself up from the floor first before reaching down for my hands. I push myself up before taking his hand; I hoist myself onto my knee, followed by the other, and then onto my feet. Meanwhile, Sonia helps Marcia off of the floor next to me and then Spence climbs up from laying flat on his back. I clasp a hand onto my lower back to ease the pain while taking a look around. Then again, I have had worse injuries playing hockey.  
It’s a dim, intimately lit diner with that soft carpet covering the floor beneath us, and a series of aged black wooden tables. Single long light bulbs surrounded by wrought iron cases are suspended from the ceiling overhead by clean smooth black cables. The lights themselves cast greenish yellow light over us and the clean but faded metal walls behind us.  
“So this is Snarky’s,” I note aloud; I raise my arms over my head to stretch my back.  
“Oh, yeah, I remember this place now,” Spence adds, running his fingers through his hair, “I think I came in here drunk one time.”  
“And we just sit anywhere, too,” Marcia points out. I keep my arms over my head and I feel my shirt riding up my waist a bit. Sonia takes a glimpse back at me right as her sister tugs back the sturdy black chair closest to me. She eyes the little stripe of skin between the bottom of my shirt and my belt, and the fact I have my arms raised up, and she flutters her eyelashes at me. I want to tell her “why, hello” in my most flirtatious tone of voice, but not with Lars and Spence here, and the fact Marcia kissed me and grabbed my crotch while she was crying still hanging over me. She puckers her lips at me right before she takes her spot next to Marcia.  
I set my arms down in order to park myself there at the table in between her and Lars.  
Soon enough, I can’t get the big stack of waffles into my mouth quicker. All so sweet and so warming on the inside that every bite is of utmost bliss. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the Bennetts both watching me eat up. I’ll let them, these two vixens of women. I’m hungry and these are some of the best waffles I’ve ever eaten in my life.  
“So, Joey,” Lars starts after sipping his hot tea and taking a bite of streusel, “I was in Portland yesterday after you and Maya went back to your place.”  
“Portland—Maine?” I ask him as I’m putting a bite of waffle with some butter into my mouth.  
“Oregon,” he corrects me, “where these two young ladies hail from. I found a few issues of her zine, too. Courtesy of a friend of a friend.”  
“Portland, Oregon,” I say aloud, glancing over at Marcia and Sonia with my eyebrows raised.  
“Sexy Portland, mind you,” Sonia wags her fingers at me. I return to Lars as he’s taking another sip of tea.  
“It might not be much, but I do believe we have the beginnings of a paper trail.”  
“Oh thank fuck.” I breathe a sigh of relief.  
“Maya who?” asks Sonia.  
“That girl I was telling you and Marcia over the phone last night,” he answered in a single breath. “The young writer of After the Watershed, remember?”  
“I found her laying in a gutter,” I fill in for him. “A couple of nights ago.”  
“Told me all about it and everything, too,” Spence chimes in.  
“Oh yeah that’s right!” Marcia chirps up.  
“Yeah, and Joey’s been trying to figure out what happened to her,” Lars continues, “and that’s why I went back to Portland briefly, aside from telling my wife that I’d be home soon.”  
I think back to when he was in that room of Black Orchid, and also the fact he was there that night. He still hadn’t told me why about that, either. He’s also still wearing his wedding band on his left hand. I have an odd feeling about this but he did find some things about her, so I kind of need to have him with me.  
“Yeah, I—well, I shouldn’t necessarily say ‘I’—found some copies of of her zine tucked inside of an old book on the Burnside Street Bridge over the Willamette River.”  
“The book was on the bridge?” echoes Sonia.  
“In a box, rather. Ashley found it when her mother was reporting about books stolen out of a Seattle library. And coincidentally, they were from the Seattle area. I can’t say which library, and I doubt Olivia would be willing to say anything. Ashley just so happened to find it driving across the bridge towards the heart of downtown.”  
I swallow another bite of waffle as he took another sip of tea.  
“You didn’t bring it with you, didn’t you,” I guess out loud.  
“I could not,” he admits, picking up his fork for more streusel, “wormhole aside, I simply could not take them with me because they’re evidence in a crime case. You and I have to sign a release form in order to access them.”  
“So Joe has to go to Portland,” Spence follows along.  
“Which means future hockey games will be on hold for a bit,” I advise him.  
“Marcia and Sonia can join us if they would like,” Lars offers.  
“We have to work,” Marcia tells him.  
“I also can’t afford more days off,” Sonia joins in, taking a sip of her coffee.  
“Can I at least have some down time to myself first?” I ask him. “You know, before you take me there.”  
“Well, of course. Unless darling Maya is in that much of a dicey condition.”  
“She’s at my friends’ Barney and Billy’s house. She was totally fine with it and I’m sure they’re taking good care of her.”  
“Oh good! Well, let’s enjoy our breakfast here for the time being.”  
“I’ve gotta use the bathroom—“ I excuse myself from the table and head across the room to the narrow corridor around the end of the bar. I step inside the men’s room and I spot a silver haired man wrapped in a black coat at the closest urinal to me. I don’t mind him and I take the one two over to his right. I have my eyes fixated on myself and I’ve got both hands on me. Just a guy minding his own business.  
I say this because I could see, again out of the corner of my eye, the old guy taking a peek past my arms and right at my groceries. It’s a fleeting glimpse because he heads past me to the sink. He definitely saw me. He looked right at me. I don’t move my head but I do watch him outside of my blind spot.  
He’s at the sink washing his hands and in the mirror I catch a sliver of his face, enough to see the good sized scar there on the side. Something glimmers on his neck. I finally turn my head to spot the golden cross pendant around his neck; the scar meanwhile is a vertical straight line up the side of his face. It’s not the clean, clear surgical scar on Maya’s forehead: it’s bright red and rather thick, like it just happened.  
He glances up at me upon shutting off the water and I return to what I’m doing.  
I hear him dry off right behind me. I nibble on my lip as I feel his eyes watching me. A cold chill runs up my spine as he breezes past me. The door swings open as he heads back out there. I let out a long low whistle once I’m alone, and then I zip up.

*******************************

Since Lars has been doing a great deal of traveling, and he apparently has no place to stay, he had volunteered to stay with either me or Spence back in Oswego. He has to work whereas I’m not doing anything and thus I took up to the offer. But Spence still drove the both of us home after dinner at his place. At this point, it’s ten o’clock at night, and I don’t feel like doing much of anything else tonight.  
“So this is where you live,” he announces after Spence drops us off at the front of the complex.  
“Yes sir-ee. This is home to me.” I lead him to my front step and take the key out of my pocket. I unlock the door and step inside of the darkness first.  
“Watch your step,” I advise him, especially since he hurt his foot somehow traveling through the wormhole. I round the side of the couch to the lamp next to my chair to it on. Golden yellow light bathes the room around us. He shuts the door and peels off his coat.  
“Just hang it up here?” He gestures to the hooks next to the door.  
“Correct-a-mundo,” I tell him as I take off my coat.  
“I assume it’s just you here. As I am only seeing a couple of rooms down the hall.”  
“Right again.”  
He sniffles a bit.  
“It smells clean in here,” he remarks, “too clean for your given bachelor pad.”  
“Would you believe she cleaned it yesterday?”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. It surprised me, too. She was alone all day here and she cleaned the whole place up, top to bottom.”  
“Holy shit.”  
“Yeah, she even got—“ I pick up the phone receiver to show him the key pad. “—right in between the keys on the phone here. Who does that?” I hang up the phone.  
“Apparently she did. She must’ve been bored as holy hell yesterday. I mean, what was she doing here by herself?”  
“I offered to take her with me to my hockey game and she never awoke, so I told her where I was going and left.”  
“Huh. You know, she may have been suffering from cabin fever a bit, too. I know that happens to me when I’m stuck somewhere.”  
“Yeah, that could be it, too...” I really wasn’t paying much attention, other than the fact there was a thin stripe of lace laying across the top of the lampshade. Either she missed a spot that I had missed myself, or...  
“So,” he speaks again, “shall we retire for the evening?” But I’m more curious about this bit of lace here, and so I still pay no attention.  
“Joey?”  
“Huh?” I turn to look at him.  
“Shall we call it a night?”  
“Uhh—sure. It is getting late and it has been kind of a long day, too.”  
I raise my arms over my head again and I feel a chill run up the front of my body. It’s either Vera or Mrs. Snow who’s in here with us right now. Or maybe it’s Nerissa from the fact she’s always wanting to touch me, and the fact the sensation is running down my chest to my stomach and all the way down to the zipper of my jeans.  
“I’ll take the sofa,” he offered, taking a seat right in the middle cushion.

*******************************

I’m all cozy and comfy in my bed, bundled up in my blankets and with a bit of hair over my face when I awaken to the sound of Lars shouting something in the front room. I lift my head to find no one there.  
“Probably Vera freaking him out,” I say aloud, peeling back the covers.

I’m walking blind across the room to the door and then the hallway where I’m met with the sound of Lars’ terrified voice blithering something in what sounds like gibberish. And it takes me a few seconds to realize that it’s Danish.  
“Lars?” I call out to the darkness. Silence.  
“Lars?” I call out again, this time in a softer voice. The whole front of the apartment is cold, like he had opened the window. In the dim light, I can make out the faint silhouette of the couch right in front of me. But I can’t see him.  
“Lars? Where are you?”  
“Joey?” he calls out from the other side of the couch.  
“Hang on a second—don’t move—“  
I grope my way over to the lamp to turn on the light. Something cold brushes up against my hip but I don’t mind it. I reach underneath the edge of the lampshade and the whole room washes in that same golden light. I snap my eyes shut for a second, and then I open them back up again to adjust them to the light. Lars had yanked the spare blanket I had lent him right over his head and buried his face right into the back of the sofa.  
“You alright?” I ask him, rubbing my eyes and shaking my head. A hand sticks out of the top of the blanket to push it back off his head. He squints his eyes against the light: the color has left his face and I know something spooked him.  
“Something—Something kept trying to grab me,” he stammers.  
“Grab you? Like.. trying to throw you off the couch or what?”  
“Trying to grab my wrist, followed by a woman’s voice, and then I heard a girl’s voice whispering something to me, and that’s when I freaked out.”  
“A girl’s voice?”  
“Yeah, like that of a little girl.”  
“Vera...” I mutter under my breath. He heard a woman, too, so Mrs. Snow might be here, too.  
“Who?”  
I return to him and the puzzled look upon his face.  
“Um...”  
“Vera? Is that what you said?”  
“Yeah, I—I live with ghosts,” I confess to him.  
“Ghosts?” He gapes at me as his skin turns as white as a sheet and his eyes grow large. “You mean there’s more than one here?”  
“Yeah, there’s—um—Vera? The girl, the kid. Yeah. Right behind you.”  
Lars leaps forward, and lunges for me. He clutched onto my shoulder and ducks right behind me. I catch the shape of her head fading out from behind the arm of the couch, right where he was laying.  
“Wait a minute, if there’s Vera, where’s Mrs. Snow?” I wonder aloud.  
“I can’t! I can’t!” he yells out.  
“For fuck’s sake, man, calm down,” I tersely tell him. “It’s a ten-year-old kid and a nurse. Although Mrs. Snow hates it when I jack off, but still they’re not gonna hurt us. See, here’s Vera—“  
Lars clutches at my sleeve as she floats out from behind the couch. Goose pimples cover my skin as the temperature drops at her presence. She’s wearing her little sundress and her hair floats back from the back of her head as if she’s under water. Her body looks as though she’s made of lake effect fog. Her eyes gape back at us like big black holes.  
“She likes to stare at me while I’m sleeping, so out of all of them, she’s the one I’m least afraid of.”  
“How—many are there?” he sputters out; I turn around to find him leaning out from behind me for a better look at her.  
“There’s four. Her, the nurse Mrs. Snow, a girl like our age named Nerissa, and an old man named Mr. Lang.”  
“Wait a minute, what’s that right behind her?”  
Something big and black trickles out from behind her, something as cold and cavernous as the bottom of the lake outside. The black tatters from the head bleed out into the color of silver. The silvery color bleeds into a near golden blond. I recognize that long streaky blond hair drifting off of the skull topping its body. It’s wearing that black cloak that’s forever imprinted upon my memory.  
“Oh God,” I blurt out.  
“What is that?”  
“It’s the Man in Black,” I reply. “Turn off the light. Turn off the light!”  
His fingers fumble on the actual light switch. When he does turn off the light, I grab him by the arm before running back to my bedroom. I shut the door behind us. I let go of him as I lean my back up against the door panel. In the dim light, I can see him staring at me.  
“The Man in Black?” he repeats.  
“Yeah—that one’s kind of a long story, but all I’m gonna say about him is the first time I saw him, I just about pissed my pants. He tried to suffocate me when I spent the night at Barney and Billy’s place one time.”  
“Suffocate you?”  
“Yeah, at least that’s what I think he was gonna do anyways. He may have just been trying to grab my neck or my face—I don’t have a damn clue what he wants from me.”  
“Well, if that’s the case then all I can say is I’m glad we got out of there when we did.”  
“I know, right?”  
I breathe out a sigh of relief as I feel my heartbeat calm down. It’s cool in here, at least it’s not freezing.  
“Who were the other ghosts you said?” he asks upon clearing his throat.  
“Aside from Vera and Mrs. Snow?”  
“Yes.”  
“Nerissa and the old man. She wants to fuck me senseless.”  
He chuckles at that. “Really?”  
“Yeah, she’s always wanting to ride up on my schlong and caressing me down. And the old man, Mr. Lang, is just someone I talk to when I want to speak whenever I’m feeling lonely—“  
I’m cut off by the sound of a low moan out in the front room. It’s a pained, disembodied moan that sends even more chills over my arms and my shoulders. I don’t know if it’s Vera or the Man in Black but it goes loud for a second before being cut off by sheer silence.  
“Shit,” I whisper.  
“Can I bunk with you tonight?” he timidly asks me, his voice trembling.  
“Eh, sure. Why not. I don’t trust the Man in Black as far as I can probably throw him.  
“We’ll have to sleep in reverse, though.”  
“Reverse?”  
“Foot to toe.”  
“Foot to toe?”  
“Yeah, you know.”  
“You mean head to toe?”  
He pauses for a second.  
“Right.”


	16. (the city of roses)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Sing a lie, ghost of the night  
Give yourself to me  
The road is long and winding still  
And these bonds will stay to fray  
But another day.”  
-Opeth, “I Feel the Dark” 🌹🌺🌙🖤

October 15, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
I’ve completely forgotten that Lars is laying with his back to me there in bed, so when I wake up the next morning, I feel something hitting me right in the back. For a second, I think it’s Vera trying to get my attention because of the Man in Black looming about inside of the house but then I feel something wiggle against me. Something small and minute, like toes. I crack open my eyes to behold the sight of bluish gray morning light filtering through the blinds covering my bedroom window. I feel it again and I roll my head over on the surface of my pillow.  
The sound of him snoring catches my ear. I glance back to my nightstand and the clock next to the copy of Tropic of Capricorn.  
He never told me what time we would leave for Portland, but I figure it would be nice if we left sooner rather than later, given Maya’s condition and everything.  
“Hey--” my voice breaks upon speaking.  
“Hrm?”  
“Wake up.” I shuffle my legs together and pat him in the back of the head with my ankles. He groans and stirs, but his whole face is covered with the blankets down by my feet.  
“Wake up. Do you think maybe we could get to Portland early enough?”  
“Maybe,” his voice croaks from sleep. “What time is it?”  
“Eight fifteen.”  
“Then it’s a quarter past five there right now, man. We can wait a while, maybe half an hour or something like that. Besides, it’s Saturday. Olivia works every other weekend and Ashley likes to sleep in on days like this with school and everything.”  
“Oh. Oh, right, right, right, time zones and all that. And besides you’re the one taking me there.”  
“Right, and--I couldn’t hardly sleep, either, you kept smacking me in the back of the head with your--fucking calves. You can get up if you like, but I want to lay here for another five minutes or something like that.”  
And I still have hardly anything to eat for myself. But I get up anyways because I don’t want to kick him in the head anymore. I peel the blankets off of me and sit upright with my legs pulled up towards my chest. I then climb over him onto the cold carpet. Once I’m up, I push the covers back over him so he’ll keep the warmth within him.  
When I leave the room, I feel a curtain of sheer cold fall upon my head and shoulders. The hair on my arms stands on end. God, don’t let it be the Man in Black again.  
I glance to my right to make out the wispy but darkened silhouette of a man, hunched over from his progressed age. His head takes the shape of a balded one and lined with drooping skin: he has on a black trilby hat and a heavy mahogany coat with his wings on his sleeves. His hollow sunken eyes stare back at me from the nothing that he’s emerging from, but he’s not nearly as chilling as the Man in the Black.  
“Hey, Mr. Lang,” I greet the old man.  
“Hello, son,” he says in a squeaky, high pitched voice. “Care for an apple?” He reaches into his coat pocket for a big ripe red apple as big as mine and Lars’ fists combined.  
“Oh, please. I’m starving.”  
“Here.” He takes two steps towards me, each one a light drift like the fog over Lake Ontario over the cold carpet, and hands me the apple.  
“It’s clean, so go on and have a bite.”  
I take a rather large bite. Such bliss! It’s sweet and full of water  
“I heard what happened last night with you and the boy in there.”  
“Oh, with Lars and the Man in Black?” I repeat with my mouth full.  
“Mm-hmm. You know, you should be more wary about those malevolent ghosts, especially when you have guests over.”  
“I’m aware, Mr. Lang,” I assure him. “It’s just... you know, sometimes I forget. This is a really good apple, by the way. Thank you for this.”  
“I spoke to the young lady who was here earlier.”  
“Maya?” I cover my mouth full with the palm of my hand.  
“Her. She’s very wise, much like how you are. She was willing to converse with me like she would a live man. Very intelligent, too. Wise, intelligent, and in touch with herself, but not like how you are.”  
“How so?”  
“Well, for starters, she’s not as frightened of Mrs. Snow as you are.”  
“Well, that’s because Mrs. Snow always wants to smack me up side the head and then punch me right in the family jewels for touching myself.”  
“But she seemed a little more easygoing with her and the fact she can be rather frightening. It was interesting to watch her interact with Mrs. Snow like she would with a live woman.”  
I pause for a moment, right as I’m about to take another bite of apple.  
“Really?”  
“Yes, she—seemed pretty comfortable towards her and the fact she can in fact be in a snit sometimes. The blond gentleman in all black, too.”  
“The Man in Black?” I’m stunned by that.  
“Yes. And that was like watching a little girl come closer to an untamed wild beast.”  
I gaze on at Mr. Lang with intent as he drifts in and out of the morning light surrounding us. Now I’m more curious about Maya than before and I feel more apt to wake up Lars and go to Portland.  
“The man said something to her, but I couldn’t exactly tell what he was saying to her.”  
“What was the tone in his voice?” I press on before taking another bite.  
“I don’t really know, son. But she is without a doubt an interesting character you brought home with you.”  
“Brought home?’ She’s not my girlfriend. she’s a girl I found laying in a gutter the other night and the other alternative was leaving her there to freeze or drown.”  
“Trip the darkness with her, son. Figure her out, because I can only leave with so much. I left with the noose around my neck and nothing more. All I can give is the values of flesh.” I take some more bites of that apple, all the way around and down to the core. He eyes me intently before the corners of his mouth curl up into a thoughtful smile.  
“I had a sense that you would enjoy that apple.”  
“Oh yeah. It was like perfect, and I feel a lot better, too.” I pat my stomach with my free hand. “Thank you, Mr. Lang.”  
“Take care of yourself, son. Take care of yourself the way I never could. You are raw, untouched beauty if I ever saw it among the living.”  
And without another word, he bows his head and vanishes into wisps of vapor and then into nothing. I hurry into the kitchen to rid of the apple core, and double back to my room to change my clothes and wake up Lars. I don’t know how cold it’s gonna be in Oregon but I’m putting on my sleeveless David Bowie shirt underneath my black velvet vest and underneath my leather jacket.  
Once I have my jeans on and my Chucks laced up, I give my hair a toss back and then lunge for my bed. I set a hand on Lars’ hip covered with the blanket and I shake him back and forth.  
“Hey, hey—wake up.”  
“Hm?”  
“Wake up. We gotta go.”  
“Where?”  
“Portland.”  
“Five more minutes.”  
“No. Fuck that. Get up.”  
“Five more minutes!”  
“No—get the hell out of my bed.” I push back the covers to find him laying face down.  
“Get out of my fucking bed—” I demand him.  
“No,” he argues. I slide my arms underneath him and lift with my knees and my hips. Holy shit, he’s heavy!  
“Get out—of—my fucking—bed!” I grunt out as I lift him out of my bed. He sticks out his legs but I have the upper hand. I lay him down on the carpet and lunge back to the bed to fix the covers.  
“What the fock, man?” I turn around right as he scrambles back to me.  
“No.” I hold out my arm to bar him from laying down again. “Get dressed, we’re going to Portland.”  
“Wait, we’re going to Portland now?”  
“Yes. We have to go.”  
“Dude, it’s still probably like five in the morning there.”  
“So? That doesn’t mean we can’t get a head start on the whole shebang.”  
He blinks several times and rubs his eyes, and right then I let go of him. He lets out a low whistle as he runs his fingers through his hair and wipes his hands together.  
“Okay, fine, give me a minute.”  
“Alright.” I pass him and return to the hallway to wash my hands because I think he drooled on me. I can hear him cursing to himself across the hall even over the trickle of cold water out of the faucet. I dry off with the hand towel and head into the front room to lock the door; I return right back as he’s buttoning up his velvet vest and tugging on his overcoat.  
“Okay,” he says, wiping his hands together again. He holds onto the arrowhead around his neck at the base and does the same waving motions as he did that night in Black Orchid with it. A thin lacy veil appears right before me out of the thin air.  
Just as before, I crawl in head first and suck in my stomach. I reach out into the darkness and drag myself to the other end of the tunnel. I stumble out onto my side this time, onto a patch of grass.  
The air is clear and crisp, about how it is back in upstate, but there’s something else. I have no idea what time it is and I can feel we’ve made our way over to the other side of the country even if it felt like I just crawled against a sheet of darkness upon my stomach only a few inches. I smell the salt and feel the rush of the cool breeze from the ocean against the back of my head. I roll over onto my back to find there even within the violet morning light, Lars laying on his back there in the grass next to me with his eyes closed.  
“Hey--” I shake him again.  
“Hm--”  
“You okay?”  
“Yeah,” he replies, his voice breaking. He reaches up to rub his eyes when he winces in pain.  
“What happened?” I hoist myself up on my elbows.  
“I think something bit me,” he answers again, clutching his right hand and stroking the inside with the pad of his thumb. I glance about the patch of grass we landed upon.  
“Where are we?”  
“My house. One of them, anyways.”  
I sit upright to better peer behind me at the cute little pale brick house with a stark black roof and a Christmas cactus on the front porch.  
“My wife’s not home so we can go inside,” he continues as I stand to my feet. I reach down to help him up and then we amble up the little walkway to the front step. He takes out a small ring of keys from the interior of his coat; I watch unlock the front door and we’re met with a cramped front den and a small looking kitchen tacked onto the other side of the room.  
“I’ll call them,” he says once I shut the door behind us.  
“So where’s this box of books you were telling us about?” I ask him, taking off my jacket and draping it over my forearm.  
“Next to the silly putty sofa there. Like I said, we have to sign a release form because the whole thing is technically evidence.” He strides into the kitchen for the phone on the wall. I watch him dial a number on the keypad and then I take a seat there on the plush looking couch up against the wall. I lay my jacket on the arm: meanwhile, the couch cushions feel like they’re swallowing me whole. It’s like reclining on a couple of marshmallows: my knees rise up and I know I’m almost laying flat on my back.  
I hear Lars saying something but I can’t hardly hear him because the damn couch cushions are covering up my ears. I’m sinking back into it. I’m not even doing anything and yet it’s tugging me back. I trying to fight back but it keeps holding me down, much like a wad of silly putty.  
“Okay, buh-bye--” is the last thing I hear Lars say on the phone in the next room. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him running towards me. But I don’t see what’s next.  
Instead, I feel him grip onto my wrists and yank me out of the cushions. It makes a sucking noise as I’m pulled out and thrown onto him: he falls back onto the shag carpet, and I land on his chest. But I scramble up onto my feet before he can say anything. I run my fingers through my hair and let out a low whistle.  
“Shit, I really gotta do something about that damned thing,” he mutters under his breath.  
“What the hell was that?” I demand from him.  
“Silly putty couch. When I first got it back home in Denmark, it was like the best thing to sleep on ever. Made by the same scientists who craft some hydrogen drones you’ll see back in New York City and up in Seattle soon enough. Thing is after a while it gets incredibly sensitive to different shapes and weights with time. I might have thirty pounds on you, but you’re taller than me. So it doesn’t like anyone taller than five foot six.”  
He eyes me with a slight little smirk on his face.  
“Okay, so,” he starts again, rising his hands before him, “on a scale of one to pissed, how frustrated would you feel if I told you what’s up?”  
“Not... very?” Really, it’s the least of my problems now that a couch almost sucked me inside of itself.  
“Ashley and Olivia should be here soon,” he tells me.  
“Okay. How soon is soon, though?”  
“Seattle is about an hour and a half away, and they live in a neighborhood called Queen Anne. Hopefully there’s not a lot of traffic. I have to make a couple more calls, including one to my wife. This is also my house.”  
“What should I do?”  
He hesitates for a moment, and then he sits up, and stands to his feet, and he reaches forward to stroke either side of my face.  
“Relax,” he tells me in a near breathy voice. “Go take a walk. We’re in downtown Portland after all. There are a few bars and coffee houses right down the block from here and people here aren’t nearly as judge-y as they can be in the real remote parts of upstate New York where you’re from. So here--” He reaches into his interior coat pocket for his black leather wallet and opens it up, thus revealing a big fat stack of cash money. He takes out several of the bills and hands them to me. I gape at the sheer amount he just handed to me.  
“Jesus, Lars, I can’t take all of this,” I wince at the very sight of it.  
“Nonsense. I make a fair amount, Joey. Don’t worry about it.” He closes his wallet and stuffs it back into his coat pocket.  
“Really, take it. Get yourself something nice, my friend. Treat yourself. A cup of coffee for your sleepy head and a bite of scone for your rumbling belly. It’s not Seattle but I assure you that you are in a very lovely place to be.”  
I glance down at the money again. I don’t know how I feel about it. He sets a hand on my shoulder.  
“You’re in the City of Roses, my indigenous friend,” he says aloud. “Go and smell the reddest of roses you can find down by the rose gardens--we’re about three blocks from there.”  
I let out a low sigh because I figure he means well, so I pocket the money.  
“Alright, I’ll be back.” I pick my jacket off of the putty couch and slip it back on before I head out to the chilly morning. The sky is still that rich purple color but I can tell the city will come alive soon enough, that is if it hasn’t already. I have no clue where I’m headed but I’ll follow this sidewalk where it takes me. He said there’s a rose garden near here, but I don’t where exactly this place could be as I’m walking towards an intersection. I peer both ways before crossing.  
The light from the rising sun on my right paints the sky into a more royal blue color over my head: I drop my gaze to the large scraggly oak trees lining the block, most of them having lost their leaves at this point; but I can make out some large rain clouds to the north of here. Maybe I’ll get experience my first true Pacific Northwest rain soon enough?  
I overhear two ladies on the other side of the street talking about pie and a place called Lake Oswego. Both of those things pique my interest as I come across a tiny little brick cafe called Junior’s. I duck through the front door and take a seat at the counter near the cash register. I run my fingers through my hair when the young, chubby waitress walks up to me from around the corner to my right.  
“’Morning, doll. What can I get for ya?”  
“A stack of pancakes and a cup of coffee, please.”  
“What would you like on your pancakes? Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, Marion berries?”  
“Marion berries?” Never heard of them.  
“Yeah.” She pauses, gazing at me with a thoughtful look upon her face. “You’re not from around here, are you?”  
“Upstate New York.”  
“Wow. That’s a ways out. So how do you like Oregon?”  
“I just got here. So I know there’s... you know, tons to experience around here.” I show her a shy little smile and she gives me a light little chuckle.  
“Tons indeed. I’ll get that up for you.”  
“Sure thing, uh—” I notice the bronze name tag above her breast pocket. “—Nancy. Also, is it true there’s a Lake Oswego near here?”  
“There is! I don’t know much about it, though. I’m actually from Seattle but I’m working here because there’s not much up north.”  
“Man, that blows.”  
“Eh, I have to do what I have to do, between starting school again this week and supporting myself and my boyfriend. He’s in a band but who knows what’s going to happen there.”  
“I hear that. I used to be in a band and then I got kicked out.”  
“Aw, I’m real sorry to hear that! What instruments do you play?”  
“I was the lead singer but I’m also a drummer.”  
She gasps at that as she pours me a cup of coffee.  
“He’s the lead singer, too! And he drums, too.”  
“I should meet this guy,” I suggest to her. She sets down the mug in front of me and then leans upon the counter.  
“Where’re you staying?” she asks me.  
“I’m staying with a friend at the moment. Right up the block.”  
“I get off work at noon. Stand out on the sidewalk and I’ll come meet up with you. Now, onto those pancakes with Marion berries...”


	17. (cry for the indian summer)

October 15, 1988. Southeast Portland, Oregon.  
After breakfast, and I had told Nancy my name, and my stomach is nice and warm, and the back of my throat is still watering from those fresh Marion berries, I leave for a bit to head back to Lars’ house. At first, it’s a little disorienting because I walked through here while it was still dark as night and I used the light from the sunrise as my help. But I do recall walking down the block and there being an intersection. In fact, I recognize Lars running out of the front door towards the mailbox on the sidewalk about three doors down from the corner where I had crossed earlier.  
The sun hangs over the neighborhood; meanwhile, the clouds behind me seemed to have backed off while I was in that cafe eating pancakes. There’s no wind and my coat is starting to feel heavy from the overhanging moisture around. Indeed, once I reach the front step of his house, I peel off my jacket and toss it over my shoulder. I step inside to find Lars shuffling through a stack of papers on the floor.  
I run my fingers underneath my bangs and I feel my forehead is quite warm. Not necessarily sweating, but getting there.  
“Feels like you guys having an extra bit of summer right now,” I remark. “Jesus.”  
“That’s the third time this week that’s been going on,” he replies, keeping his eye on the papers spread around him. “Apparently, we’re having a bit of an Indian summer right now and–” He lifts his head and a finger at me. “–I’m not just saying that, either.”  
“No, no, I get it. I know what that is. You don’t have to–you know.” I lay my jacket on the back of the chair in the corner opposite the silly putty couch. I rub my hands together.  
“So at any rate, I met a girl at this little cafe up the street here,” I begin. “It’s nothing, though.”  
He lifts his head again, this time with his eyebrows raised.  
“You sure about that?”  
“She already has a boyfriend,” I point out.  
“You—You dirty dog,” he says with a chuckle.  
“No, what I mean is I told her I’m a musician and her boyfriend is, too, and she told me he and I could probably meet up at some point. I just wanted to bring that up in case you’re interested.”  
“Well, of course.” He lifts himself into an upright position so he’s kneeling on the floor. “We’re all kind of in this together. We have to support each other. Even inflammatory statements are a form of support.”  
“She gets off at… noon, I think is what she said?”  
“Okay, so plenty of time to figure things out here.”  
“Oh, yeah, what’s going on here?” I crouch down across from him.  
“Just going through some old papers. Ashley left about five minutes ago and gave me these—”  
“Red tape horse shit,” I mutter under my breath as he hands me a sheet of paper with some tiny black text over the surface. “But it’s for the best.”  
I shrug as he hands me a pen from the inside of his coat. The print is so tiny that I bring it right up to my face and I still can scarcely read it. But I spot the dotted line and sign my name there.  
“What’s her name, by the way?” he asks.  
“Hm?” I lower the paper and click the pen.  
“The waitress’ name. What’s her name?”  
“Uh—Nancy. I think.”  
“Nancy?”  
“Nancy. As in nancy boy.”  
He hesitates with a thoughtful look upon his face.  
“Is her boyfriend in a band at all?”  
“Yes,” I reply with a bit of reluctance. “She said he drums and sings, just like me. Why?”  
“Did she say what his name is?”  
“No… and I should ask you, where are you going with this?”  
“I think I know her. She sounds familiar—the waitress named Nancy. Anyways, I will give these to Olivia when she shows up here—any time now. In the mean time, I believe it’s safe to look over that box back there… behind the silly putty couch.”  
I lunge for the arm of the couch and find that white box in question. I kneel down before it for a closer look: there’s a copy of Tropic of Cancer as well as some other books, all of which I never heard of, and then there’s a copy of The Great Gatsby, which has a small stack of extra paper tucked in the back pages near the cover.  
“Is this it here?” I wonder aloud.  
“What?”  
“That zine you were telling me about?”  
“Bring it here.”  
I climb to my feet and return to him. I lay the book on the floor before him and take out the papers, and sure enough, we’re met with a small booklet with a dark blue cover decorated with silver ovals and tiny white stars: it takes me a minute to realize those ovals are eyes, all clumped together so as to resemble clusters of berries. At the top of the page, written in silver cursive lettering, reads the title: after the watershed; and underneath in that same silver lettering is (a zine by maya isabelle sorensen). I turn it over to find, in the top corner of the back page, a number one over a number six, written in pencil. Underneath that copy was what resembled a rough draft of another edition.  
“That’s it, alright,” says Lars. “Maya’s zine that I have no doubt will go to great lengths. That is, if in the proper setting and place and in the right hands. And the thing that will give you some background on her—”  
There’s a noise out front and we both freeze in place.  
“Olivia?” I take a guess.  
He chews on his bottom lip when a loud groan emerges from outside. His eyes widen in fear.  
“Shit, she’s home.” He scrambles to pick up the paperwork strewn about on the floor, while I tuck the copies back into the book. As I climb to my feet, I stop in place.  
“Wait, what should I do?”  
“Hide out in the laundry room—back there—around the corner—” He gestures behind him to the kitchen, and I pick up the book and papers, and rush into the next room. There’s a doorway on the other side of the fridge at the opposite end of the room. I skid into that tiny laundry room and duck behind the big shiny chromatic dryer with a bunch of dials and three different gauges up top. I sink down to the floor with my back against the side of the dryer: it aches a little from the fact my stomach is still quite full.  
Then I realize I left my jacket in the front room. I let out a quiet sigh when I also realize it’s a little too late at that point.  
I sigh again in hopes to calm down my heartbeat. The house is silent for a minute and then I hear their voices in the front room. I can’t tell what they’re saying but I can indeed hear them. I lay the book on my lap and stroke the cover for a minute until my eyes adjust to the dim light. Then I take the papers out again.  
I turn over the booklet to the back cover and open it to the very last page. Some typewriter type text covers the sheet of paper there. I lay it over the top of the book to better read it.  
“My name is Maya Sorensen. I am twenty-three years old, my birthday is May 17, 1964, and I was born in Nottingham, England to Norwegian immigrants. There is nothing you need to know about my home life other than the fact it was rough and it nearly killed me. Writing has been my saving grace far more times than actually saying grace. I have an elder sister, but we don’t talk because she condones instead of condemns. Everything I say in this zine is of my own opinion and perspective on life and the world, and is to be taken into consideration instead of defense. It is not for the feeble minded, nor is it for the conveyors of silence. I am a young woman, and I will be heard even if it falls on deaf ears.”  
Beneath the passage is a pen scrawl reading:  
“I am not a bad person and I refuse to be, but there is something within me that feels far colder than the coldest of emotions, something that makes my blood run ice cold. If I burrow deep into the earth, my hope is I don’t find any water because I could drown.”  
I knit my eyebrows together at that.  
“’If I burrow deep into the earth, my hope is I don’t find any water because I could drown,’” I repeat it in a soft voice. What could it mean?  
I hear Lars say something which is then followed by silence. Then—  
“Joey?” he whispers in through the doorway behind me.  
“Back here. Behind the dryer.”  
“Listen, man—you’ve got to boogie out of here for a bit. Tell Nancy I won’t be able to meet her and her boyfriend.”  
“Well, shit. How do I get out of here, though?”  
“The back door’s right in front of you. Just be careful opening it because it makes a metric fuckload of noise upon opening.” I gaze straight ahead at the wall before me and the pale white panels beheld there.  
He calls back into the next room, and without further hesitation, I slip the booklet back into the pages and climb back up to my feet. I creep towards the door and, with the book tucked underneath my arm, I gripped onto the off white knob and turn.  
I’m met with probably the loudest CREEEEEEEEEEEEEAK I’ve ever heard in my life, emerged straight from the hinges. It’s so loud that I stop right in my tracks. I hold my breath and peer behind me to make sure no one’s coming. I still hear Lars speaking in the next room. Now or never.  
I tug on the door and it creaks again for a second, then it disappears into a tiny squeak. I slink out to the backyard, where I’m met with a still morning as moist as one of the girls back at Black Orchid. The door squeaks shut behind me. It’s his problem now: I round the back of the house to the side, and the small stretch of pale damp soil and tiny sprigs of grass. I keep my head bowed all the way to the front of the house. I duck behind a bush for a second, and then dart out to the street to make it look like I’m just another passerby. I stand there at the sidewalk with the book under my arm for about a minute.  
“Joey!”  
I turn my head to the right to find Nancy herself walking in my direction.  
“Oh, hi,” I greet her. “Is it noon already?”  
“Nah, I just clocked out early. Slow business and it’s my last day before school starts again.” She eyes the book under my arm. “What’cha got there?”  
“Oh, just a li’l gift from my little drummer boy Lars. He can’t join us.”  
“Aw, that’s too bad.” I feel my face grow warm again. Even though it’s still plenty early, I feel the heat of the day upon us.  
“Man, I thought it was gonna rain but wow. I picked the wrong day to be wearing pants.”  
She bursts out laughing.  
“Welcome to the magnificent Pacific Northwest, Joey. That’s all I can say. Care for a little walk around the block?”  
“Uh, sure. Just so long as we stay out of the sun.”  
“’Course.” She grins at me and I follow her back up the sidewalk along the dark pavement.  
“So tell me about yourself. Long way from home, hailing from upstate New York and a singer slash drummer ejected from a band. You mentioned you’re both drummers?”  
“Yes, ma’am. More so Lars, though. I do like it, though—thumping around, makin’ lots of racket.”  
She chuckles as she adjusts the purse strap over her shoulder.  
“I’m a hockey player, too.”  
“My goodness. So that explains why you’re skin and bones?”  
“Nah, I’m skin and bones because I don’t eat much.”  
“I dunno, you were going to town on those pancakes earlier.”  
“’Cause they were so good. I couldn’t get them into my mouth more quickly. When I do eat, it’s to warm up my stomach and nourish myself.”  
“You and Chris both, I swear…” Her voice trails off as we reach the corner again.  
“I’d love to learn—” I clear my throat. “—guitar or piano, though.”  
“Chris could probably teach you,” she suggests as we cross the street. “Or Kim. Playing guitar is not hard at all. It’s just—you know, one of those things that people make such a huge deal about but it’s probably they lack the patience. At least that’s what my best friend says.” A little bit of breeze picks up and blows through the roots of my hair at the top of my head.  
“That’s what your best friend says?” I can’t help but laugh at that as we reach the other corner.  
“Yeah, Dominique says people go crazy over guitar playing because it’s the drive behind the music and the icing on the cake. But it’s really the rhythm section making the cake.”  
“And when you eat a piece of cake,” I follow along, “you’re eating the whole piece, not just the icing.”  
“Right! and that’s why she and I are both dating drummers. We like our cake.”  
“I like cake, too. And pie.”  
“Funny you say that—there’s a pie place about a block from here. That’s yet another place you oughta visit at some point.”  
“The pie place?”  
“Some of the best pies this side of the Cascade Mountains. There’s another pie place down by Lake Oswego, too. As far as I know, anyways.”  
She falls into silence for a moment, and I spot Junior’s Cafe coming up on the left again.  
“You know, Joey, I’ll admit, you were kind of an acquired taste to me at first.”  
“An acquired taste?”  
“I wasn’t too sure about you at first, because—and I’m being totally frank here, too—I’m a waitress, and it goes double given I’m kind of heavy. Guys hit on me all the time and so I’ve more or less made a habit of bringing up Chris whenever I can. But you’re just so… sweet and charming, like there’s nothing shady about you at all.”  
“You obviously haven’t seen me crack a filthy joke,” I point out to her.  
“Well, of course not. But I assume it’s not hard for you to do it, though.”  
“It’s not hard at all. Might be at some point given the right circumstance.”  
She laughs out loud once again as we reach the cafe again.  
“You know, tomorrow’s my one day off before I start school again. You wanna come up to Seattle with me and meet Chris? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”  
“I’d love to… but…” I glance about the small parking lot, which is all but vacant.  
“Where are you parked?”  
“Right there.” She points at the small hot pink Corvette with rear tail fins parked at the curb.  
“Whoa, that’s your ride?” The two of us round the side of the cafe for a better view of her car. Nancy takes out her keys from her pocket and pushes a button, unlocking it.  
“Hydrogen powered,” she explains, “all the cogs inside work hand in hand with it so it can probably go from here to where you live in New York on a single fill up without smoke from the tail pipe. It’s self sufficient so you can push a button to go on autopilot when you’re feeling tired.”  
“Wait, is it on?” There’s a low, quiet hum emerging from around it.  
“It is,” she replies with a twinkle in her eye. “When I unlock it, it turns on. So climb aboard, my friend from back East.”


	18. (subterranean pop)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “You got a kiss for me, it hits me hard;  
you got a fist for me, you love so hard.  
My hands on my head, your words are like arrows;  
my hands on my head, there's permanent damage.”  
-”Head Injury”, Soundgarden

October 15, 1988. Interstate 5 between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.  
“Hang on, Joe.”  
There are no seat belts in Nancy’s car except for the one that goes over my waist there at the base of the seat; in other words, every time she hits the brakes on a patch of traffic or a curve, I have to hold onto the door panel to keep myself from flying forward right into the dashboard. I raise my knees up and slide down into the seat when she goes around a tight corner. It’s only an hour and a half trip up there but it’s going to be quite long from all of the fact I’m holding onto the car for dear life. But on the other hand, the soft rich red interior of her car is pristine and carries with it a faint smell of lilac, and is as silent as a cold, still winter morning following a blizzard.  
I’m amazed by the vast stretch of lush greenery on either side of us on the way up to Seattle: upon leaving Portland, I catch glimpses of Mount Hood and then Mount St. Helens off in the distance, both of them surrounded by wispy cold gray clouds: I wish part of those clouds would float over this way and cool things off over here over the highway.  
Sometime before reaching the capital city of Olympia, I roll down the window to feel the wind, and it’s still humid and warm outside even if we have moved closer to the ocean. Indian summer, alright.  
I push my bangs off of my forehead. I almost inclined to take off my shirt, and in fact, I want to take it off and feel the wind on my chest and on my stomach, but seeing it’s me and Nancy here in the front seat, such a primitive sight can wait.  
Mount Rainier rises out from behind a line of tall skinny trees, much to my shock.  
“Holy shit,” I blurt out at the very size of the massive cone coated in thick blanket of pure white snow.  
“Yeah, Rainier’s big, isn’t she?” Nancy chuckles. In fact, it stays within our view all the way into Olympia and winding our way into Tacoma. The sky is so blue over our heads, and I have never seen it such a way back in New York. I lean forward to check it out better, and then I peek over my shoulder to see Rainier still looming large behind us against the blue sky. I remember the huge eruption down by Mount St. Helens just a few years ago, and I don’t want the big jewel of a city before us to experience the same thing here.  
Even from a distance, I can see the Space Needle shooting up from the heart of downtown. So small and nestled down into the earth for a city: it looks smaller than Portland in fact. To our left stands the blue glimmering waters making up the Puget Sound, and past that are two ridges covered in rich green pine trees, and then a row of more snow capped mountains. Nancy and I wind our way through the southern side of Seattle, or Sea-Tac as one sign on the side of the road declares to us. She takes the third exit off of the freeway and we roll down onto the side streets of downtown.  
“This kinda reminds me of New York City,” I remark.  
“Not as rough, big, and tough, though,” she adds to it as we pull up to the first stoplight.  
“Not at all. It feels a lot... homier, I’d say?”  
“Definitely homey here. Here and Portland both.”  
She hangs a right and pulls up to a low red brick building with big tinted windows peering out to the street.  
“Welcome to the heart of Seattle, Joey,” she says, pressing the button on her key chain and killing the hydrogen engine in front of us. I relax for a moment at the feel of us stopping and I breathe out a sigh of relief. My stomach turns a little bit but sitting there feeling the breeze on my face helps out.  
“You okay?” she asks me.  
“Yeah... yeah, yeah.” I reach down to unbuckle the seat belt, and climb out to the street to better feel the breeze on my head and my neck. Nancy follows suit on the other side of the car with her purse over her shoulder. I run my fingers through my hair before shutting the door behind me. I round the front of the car, and step onto the sidewalk, and she leads me into the front room which smells of fresh paper and clean carpet. There are three guys and a black girl congregated on the right side of the room: one guy seated in a spindly blue chair, and the other two and the girl around him. They all look like they’re reading something.  
“Chris?” Nancy calls out to them. The queasy feeling in my stomach keeps the feeling of butterflies at bay as the guy seated glances up at us.  
“This is Joey. He’s a music guy and he wanted to meet you guys.”  
He stands to his feet and strides over to us. He’s tall, a little bit taller than me, but he’s got wavy black hair like me and that same default grave expression riddled upon his face. He almost looks like me, albeit a little softer than me and his hair doesn’t stick out every which way like mine does, and he’s got larger eyes. He has on a black sweater underneath a dark green flannel shirt, black jeans, and heavy black boots. He reaches out for my hand.  
“Joey,” he says in a soft mild voice, “I’m Chris.” His grip is firm but gentle.  
“And this is Matt--” The second guy comes up behind him: he’s tall, too, but with long smooth golden blond hair down to his shoulders. He looks strong and fit, much like one of the Grey brothers.  
“Music guy, you said, Nan?” he asks her as he takes my hand: he’s firm but gentle himself.  
“I’m a singer and a drummer,” I tell them as Matt tucks his hands into his faded denim pocket.  
“Oh, that’s bitchin’, man,” Chris compliments me. “You in a band?”  
“Used to be. I got fired.” And he winces at that.  
“Oh, man,” Matt feels with me. “What for?”  
“No idea. No idea at all. I did drink a little bit but I stopped but I guess that wasn’t enough. I dunno what was going through anyone’s minds when the manager called me.”  
“We came here because I thought he reminded me of you, Chris,” Nancy fills in, and he nods his head at me.  
“It’s funny. You--kinda do. From the hair and the demeanor in particular. Would you like, uh--” He gestures behind him. “--a drink of water or something?”  
“Oh, yes please, I got a little carsick coming here.”  
“Yep, that’s Nancy’s driving for ya,” he jokes and she rolls her eyes at him. I follow them over to the other two people when Matt turns back to me.  
“I like your accent, by the way. You sound like you’re from back East.”  
“Upstate New York.”  
“Phew, long way from home!” the girl declares at me.  
“That’s what I said to him!” Nancy says with a chuckle. “And Joey, this is Matt’s girlfriend and my best friend, Dominique. Dominique, this is Joey. He’s yet another singing drummer.”  
She’s a slim lovely girl with a full head of tight black curls and that light black skin with a light sprinkling of freckles over the bridge of her nose. She tilts her head to the side at the sight of me.  
“You look familiar,” she remarks.  
“I do?”  
“He looks like me,” Chris covers for me, and the other guy bursts out laughing.  
“Well, aside from that. I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere, like in a music magazine before... I’m studying to be a journalist.”  
“She just got back from New York herself,” Matt explains, putting his arm around her.  
“Oh, yeah?” I press my hands to my hips.  
“Shadowing under a mentor and at the New York Times, no less,” she continues. “I was immersed in a bunch of music culture so I discovered a lot of music--lot of heavy music in particular--and so... I don’t know if I saw you in a magazine as part of it or what, but yeah. You look... very familiar, like I’ve seen your face.”  
“You might recognize my voice,” I point out to her. “But we’re in a recording studio right now, so you know--”  
“Yeah, there’s another band in there and we’re just waiting for our time slot to open up,” Chris explains. “You know, add... finishing touches to the production and make sure everything’s squared away and whatnot.”  
“Oh, right, right--and who’s this guy?” I nod to the fourth member of their party, another blond haired guy but with a large nose like me and beady little eyes.  
“I’m their personal mailman,” he says.  
“Oh, I see.” And we can’t help but laugh out loud as he sets down a bunch of things on the chair right before he strides out of there.  
“Did Nancy tell you that this is our first album, Joey?” Chris asks me.  
“I think she did,” I recall, “pretty exciting, ain’t it?”  
“Totally,” Matt replies, his face lighting up. “We just got signed, too--we were signed to Sub Pop and then we switched labels for our new record.”  
“Sub Pop,” I say aloud.  
They all glance at one another with excited expressions on their faces. Dominique gestures me even closer to the chair and the stack of papers in the seat.  
“Our little holy Bible of sorts,” she says, picking up the stack, “I see Bruce sent us the last couple of copies, at least that’s what Mark was telling us a bit ago.  
“Yeah, here, Joe--check this out.” Nancy gestures to the stack right as Dominique takes out a thin black booklet from near the bottom. It’s a zine, much like After the Watershed.  
The thick front cover of the zine reminded me of scratch art with its cavernous black background and pure white silhouettes in the middle. Up in the top left corner, written in thick capitalized letters was “SUB POP 5″. I open the booklet to find several newspaper clippings bookmarking the pages throughout.  
“Incredible,” I mutter under my breath as I pick out one near the front. “Oh, he writes about Metallica right here, wow, badass!”  
“I think,” she begins again, stooping over to better shuffle through it all, “I think anyways, he might have written about you and your old band, too, if I recall correctly. There was just a lot of shit to learn back East when I was there so it more or less feels like a blur to me.”  
“That’s the cool thing about him,” Nancy adds, “about Bruce--Bruce Pavitt--and his team over at Subterranean Pop as they were originally called.”  
“Yeah, he doesn’t just write about lesser knowns in places like Seattle and Portland or maybe even people like yourself,” Dominique continues, “but all the punkie type peeps across the nation. It’s because of him that Chris and Matt and their band mates Kim and Hiro are here in this studio right now and they’re putting out our first album on Halloween.”  
I slip the clipping back into the booklet before taking out another one from near the back.  
“What’s that one?” she asks me as I scan it over.  
“From... The Rocket.”  
“That’s the last entry he did for the newspaper The Rocket. Like he wrote a column called ‘Sub Pop U.S.A.’ for a while--”  
“And then ended it because of the record label,” I finish for her.  
“Right, right!”   
“And it’s been a rough road for us, though,” Chris pipes up again, “from all the money lost and whatnot...” I think back to when I was with Anthrax and how we were struggling for money ourselves. I also think about the fact I’m struggling myself.  
“This is your first album,” I recall. “For real.”  
“Yeah, we already made a couple of EPs, but yeah, this is definitely our first real big thing, though.”  
“You guys nervous?”  
“A little. I think Kim might be because he’s the one who named it kind of as a joke.”  
“As a joke?” I chuckle at that.  
“Apparently things are more than mediocre for us. They’re... ultramega OK.”  
“Reminds me of a sentiment my old band used to say a couple of years ago, and with kind of the same vibe to it. ‘Nice fucking life.’”  
“Nice fucking life!” Matt snaps his eyes shut and imitates an air guitar.  
“Now, let’s get you a cup of water,” Chris recalls from before. “I assume you’re not hungry.”  
“Nah, I just ate a bunch of pancakes before coming here,” I tell him, patting my stomach.  
“I say that ‘cause there’s nothing to eat here. And--pancakes courtesy of Nancy, right?”  
“Hell yeah.”  
“She makes ‘em--well,” he mouths that last word and flashes me a wink and an okay sign.  
“I try my best,” she remarks with another eye roll, but this time with a shy smile to accompany it. “He helps me out a lot when the going gets tough.”  
“You’re a lucky girl, Nan,” I tell her with a nod. There’s something about Chris, something that reminds me of myself, and not because we have a similar look to us. I think about this for a minute as he ducks into the next room, and Matt and Nancy start talking about something. Dominique strides up to me with a bright look in her eyes and a smile on her face.  
“Joey Belladonna, right?” she asks me.  
“Yes.”  
“Anthrax, right?”  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
“See, I thought I remember you from somewhere.”  
“Was it ‘nice fucking life’ that tipped you off?”  
“Yes! Yes, that was it! I heard about you guys all the time when I was back in New York City. Like you guys were the next big metal band to come out of the East Coast next to Overkill and... Nuclear Assault, too. I think--I brought home a copy of you guys’ latest with me to share it with Kim and Matt later on. State of Euphoria.”  
“That’s the one.”  
Matt and Nancy fall silent right then.  
“Hey, who's this guy?” she notes. I turn around to find Lars striding up to the front door with a flustered look upon his face.  
“What’s he doing here?” I wonder aloud, and I meet up with him there on the other side of the room.  
“Hey,” I greet him.  
“Hey--”  
“What’s going on?”  
“I have to tell you something,” he states, out of breath.  
“Tell me.”  
“Apparently... you remember that wormhole I made over in Black Orchid? The one in the top stairwell? The one I opened up to get you and Maya back to your place?”  
“Yes.” I pause for a moment. “What about it?”  
“I guess every time you make a wormhole, it doesn’t close up all the way.”  
“What’re you--”  
He chews on his bottom lip. And then I realize what he’s trying to tell me.  
“Oh, my God.”


	19. (mrs. hamilton's folly)

October 15, 1988. Seattle, Washington.  
“How’d he even get it stuck in there?”  
Lars and I had congregated in that same room there in the studio with Chris, Matt, Nancy, and Dominique, that is until the former two disappeared into the next room to tend to their matters. The four of us were left in that room and the fact that we had trouble with wormholes. Apparently some poor bastard back at Black Orchid got a part of his body trapped in probably the worst way possible, such that he almost passed out right there.  
Lars shifts his weight right there in the seat next to me as Nancy and Dominique watch him with intent.   
“Well, it first began with Mrs. Hamilton telling me to come quick. I was still back at home when she came in through the wormhole and met with me in my backyard, but at first, I didn’t understand what she meant by that and then she clarified herself, telling me that I needed to assist her at Black Orchid. And so I moseyed my way back there, and sure enough, while she was giving a lap dance to this big guy in there, he--yeah. Got stuck.”  
Nancy gapes at him.  
“Is he okay?”  
“Yeah. He needed to be taken to the hospital, but apparently he’s--he’s going to need a blood donor of some sort. Mrs. Hamilton made the mistake of hitting up the wrong guy, though.”  
“What do you mean, the wrong guy?” Dominique reiterates.  
“He told her to hit up Joey but she couldn’t... for whatever reason, like the guy she hit up instead couldn’t get a hold of him for whatever reason.”  
“That doesn’t really help us, though,” Nancy points out.  
“The guy--his name’s... Walter, if I remember correctly, told her to hit up Joey but she caught another guy instead, and he wound up donating his blood to him when he told her Joey wasn’t around and his other two buds were busy.”  
“Walter...” I mutter under my breath. Then it dawns on me.  
“Wait a minute. My friend Brick?”  
“Brick?” Lars raises an eyebrow at me.  
“Walter. I’ve called him Brick since we were kids.”  
“Right, Walter Maxwell.”  
“Also known as Brick. He got stuck in that little thing?”  
“It wasn’t little when it happened, though. Mrs. Hamilton said it was about the size of a tennis ball.”  
“Did they close it up?” I ask him in a small voice.  
“Well, like I said there’s really no true way to close up a wormhole once it’s made. I’ve found that they shrink after a bit if they’re not used or left unperturbed. My guess initially was either he or her must have knocked it with something.”  
“Initially,” Dominique repeats.  
“Yes. See, Black Orchid is a strip joint. My guess is she was dancing a little too hard and stuck her leg out a little far, and the high heel on her come-fuck-me pumps came within range of it which perturbed it. According to her, things were getting a little passionate between them and Walter... Brick, whatever his name is, stands up and gets too close to it, and--well.”  
“He lost a ton of blood,” I say aloud, feeling that sickly sensation in my stomach once again.  
“Yes, but he is alright, though. It was an accident on Mrs. Hamilton’s part, a folly, a dumb mistake caught up in the spur of the moment, and it made me realize the nature of wormholes on top of this as well. They’re not like black holes where once something goes in, it never comes out. But like black holes, they do re-energize upon something giving it a reason to do so. Something to think about, especially on my part.”  
He falls silent for a moment. I can’t help but think about Brick laying there in his hospital bed. I also wonder who was kind enough to give him some of their blood to help him. The very thought of it makes me feel queasy and weak, and then Lars speaks again.  
“Now, who’s hungry?”  
“I’d love something to eat,” Nancy agrees, “and our boys are in there working, anyways...”  
Even though I’m still full of pancakes, I could probably use something to settle my stomach, especially when I think about Barney and Billy and the fact they couldn’t help him. I have way too many questions now.


	20. (a big dumb wormhole)

October 15, 1988. Seattle, Washington.  
It would be another four hours before either of us could even consider returning to the street outside; at that point, the heat of the day had waned off and left us with a cool breeze. My jacket is still back at Lars' house but I don't know what happened to it or if he's even aware of it. I stand there outside of the studio windows in between Lars and Nancy with my hands stuffed in my pockets to keep myself warm. But it's useless: it's too humid and cold. Too much like home.  
“Jesus, Joe,” Dominique remarks, huddling close to me; for a second, I think she's about to put her arm around me but she doesn't. “You're fearless.”  
“Upstate will do that to a guy, I reckon,” Nancy calls past me to her.  
“Well, and I seem to have... misplaced my jacket,” I point out, feeling my whole body tremble at the core.  
Lars gasps at that.  
“It's back at my place,” he replies.  
“And where's your place?” asks Chris.  
“Down in Portland.”  
“Well, now there's your problem,” jokes Matt.  
“He also doesn't have a place to sleep, either,” Lars adds.  
“He doesn't?” echoes Nancy.  
“I don't?” I'm flabbergasted.  
“It's—It's a long story, I will explain later.”  
“Wait. I can't just crash at your place?”  
“I'll explain later. I promise. And by the way, why are we waiting out here, though?”  
“We're waiting for our ride,” explains Chris.  
“Yeah, Kim called us there in the back room,” Matt chimes in, “he said he and Hiro are gonna come pick us up outside the studio here. So for real, Joey doesn't have a place to bunk tonight?”  
“I'm afraid not,” Lars presses on.  
“Why don't you just say something, though?” asks Dominique.  
“Because it's... it's just a long story.”  
“Well, we've got time, dude. You might as well spill.”  
“Yeah, man,” I agree with her. “Shoot.”  
“Okay,” he begins with a sigh. “My wife and I got into an argument like right after you left the house.”  
“After I left Portland with Nancy?”  
“Yes. She's going on some tirade about something or other—I think she was hammered or under the influence of something or other, or something like that, like she was making very little sense towards me. And she... she—”  
“She what?”  
He shifts his weight and shuffles his feet.  
“What did she do, Lars?” I demand.  
“She... threw your jacket out into the yard.”  
“Wait, that's it?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, you were acting like she soiled it with shit or something.”  
“Yeah, see that's the thing.”  
“She didn't.”  
“She kinda—threw it into the storm drain. She thought it was mine.”  
“Well, what the fuck was she doing?”  
“Like I said, she was smashed or something or other. She wasn't hardly making any sense to me.”  
“So what'd you do?” Chris chimes in.  
“I got the hell out of there and came here.”  
I start to wonder if this has anything to do with Mrs. Hamilton, but I don't know if I should bring it up right then because neither of them know about Black Orchid or what's truly going on in Lars' home life. Right at that moment, a beat up dark blue van rolls up to the curb in front of us. Two guys are in the front seat of the cab and through the back window, I see there's some gear piled up in the bed; the guy driving has long jet black hair like me, except his isn't as quite curly or kinky, or as much of a mess as mine, and a dense black beard down to the very top of his chest. His passenger has shoulder length black hair and the flattened almond shaped eyes of an Asian man. They're both wrapped up in heavy dark jackets against the wind.  
The passenger rolls down the window and pokes out his head.  
“Hey, you might wanna bundle up—you might catch a cold.”  
“He forgot his coat,” Matt gestures over at me as Dominique puts her arm around me.  
“Now, now, this is Seattle,” the driver says, wagging his finger, “it can get cold whenever it pleases.” He kills the engine and slides out to greet us.  
“This is Joey,” Dominique introduces me, “that's Lars—Ulrich?”  
“Yes!” he pipes up; and then she gestures to him.  
“This is our partner in crime, Kim Thayil.”  
“I'm Indian,” I tell him as the dark tone of his skin comes within sight.  
“I'm Indian, too. Native American Indian?”  
“Yeah.” My teeth begin to chatter. “Yeah, the one with casinos and Geronimo and all that crap. Although curry is quite good.”  
He chuckles at that.  
“And this is our bassist, Hiro Yamamoto,” he gestures behind him to his passenger, who flashes me a peace sign.  
“You look cold, man,” Hiro remarks to me, knitting his eyebrows together.  
“I'm freezing.” I press my arms up against my body: I feel my knees quivering and quaking underneath me.  
“We don't have enough room in our van, though,” Kim points out, gesturing back to the van. “Just enough for the four of us and these two young ladies here.”  
“Here, Joe,” Lars suggests, reaching down the front of his shirt, “I'll take you back to my place so you can get your jacket. And then we can come back here real quick to hang out with you lot. It'll only take a little bit.”  
“That's perfect, actually,” Hiro remarks. “We've gotta get our stuff back to the safe place and then we're all going out to dinner over in Ballard.”  
“Ooh, Ballard!” Lars says with a tone of excitement to his voice. “Love that neighborhood.”  
“I think we can do that, though,” Chris confirms with a toss of his hair. “The more, the merrier. We're getting paid handsomely for this record anyways.”  
“Alright, we'll see you guys in a little while,” Lars doubly confirms it. Dominique gives me a hug, and Nancy does, too, and with nothing more, the five of them pile into the van. Once Kim closes his door, I turn to Lars as he's fingering the arrowhead pendant around his neck.  
“But I don't have a place to sleep, though,” I point out to him, my teeth chattering at a hundred miles an hour. “Y-You said it so yourself.”  
“Yes, I am aware. Just waiting for them to leave.”  
The van pulls away from the curb and they drive off into the city. I don't remember anything right here, other than the fact a big wormhole opened up and I land on my back on a hard surface. I lift myself up onto my elbows to find I'm on the front porch of perhaps Lars' house. Indeed, he sits up next to me, laying in the opposite direction.  
“And there's your jacket,” he points out on the sidewalk next to me. I roll onto my hip and scoop it up from the pavement. I slip it on over my body right as I hear the front door open behind me.  
“What's that fucking bimbo doing here?” a woman demands in a slurred voice. I scramble to my feet and away from the front step.  
“Darling, it's not her—he's just a friend of mine—” Lars sputters out. I tug the edges of the jacket over my chest to keep the warmth within me.  
She says something.  
“But he has hypothermia!”  
“He can take his Goddamn jacket, and get the fuck out of here and shut the fuck up—” she snarls from the inside of the house. I let out a low whistle as Lars climbs up onto his knees. He gestures for me to move in closer. He then takes off his arrowhead pendant and hands it to me.  
“Here—take this,” he whispers to me.  
“Why should I take it?”  
He swallows, perhaps out of nervousness.  
“I have to go—take care of things.”  
I feel a sinking sensation inside my chest. First I find out my long time friend is in the hospital; now something is going to happen to Lars that's going to make him miss out on a good time.  
“Don't lose this,” he advises me in a low voice. “For the love of all that's holy, don't lose this. Please.”  
I feel the smooth warm stone in my fingertips.  
“How do I use it?”  
“Focus on where you want to go and then step through. You know, make the 'X' mark in the air. You don't want to make too big of a hole because that'd be overkill. Just think about the place you want to go off to and the wormhole will do the rest. So when the time comes and you want to go home to upstate New York, just focus on your place. Feel it, if you will. I have to go, man.”  
He wheels around and ducks back into the house, and in turn leaves me alone with the arrowhead. I turn away from the front porch and make that cross motion that he does. I think I make it a little too big, just how he warned me not to do but I did it anyway because it's my first using this thing myself, but the lacy veil presents itself to me. I focus on the neighborhood Hiro had told us, Ballard. I have the word on my mind as I duck in through this big wormhole.  
I fall onto my side somewhere. Did it work? I don't know. I can't say.  
I reach up to rub my eyes and I find I'm laying on a park bench. I lift my head to better observe everything. I'm surrounded by lush shrubs; to my right is a stretch of sidewalk and a warm lit street beyond that. I peer up to the sky over me: thick clouds, much like the blanket of them spanning over the skyline of Seattle. Indeed, I peer before me to the street venturing towards something that looks like the Space Needle. I'm back in Seattle! Albeit a different part.  
I feel the smooth surface of the arrowhead in my hand; using the amber light from the street, I cradle it in the palm of my hand to better observe it. The rounded edges, the smoothed surface... who would have known such a small slice of stone could carry with it such power to do a remarkable thing for Lars.  
I climb off of the bench and place my feet flat on the ground next to me. A car silently rolls past me. Another hydrogen powered thing. I peer up to the sides of the street to find the lights are floating in mid air in total silence. I examine more closely to find they're rotating around, albeit at a slow pace.  
I zip up my jacket and tuck my hands into my pockets. I have my fingers wrapped around the arrowhead to assure it doesn't fall out as I'm walking. When I find the six of them, I'll make sure to put it around my neck so I have it on me the next time I see Lars.  
I shiver even with my coat on: it was hot earlier today and now it feels as though it's about to rain. Maybe even snow. It's not the lake effect snow but I do know one thing about Seattle is that it can snow up here. I bow my head against the cold wind blowing in from my right as I walk down to this little neighborhood of Seattle, this neighborhood that calls itself Ballard.  
I'm walking in through the darkness, and I'm reminded of the other night when I found Maya. So much has happened in these past few days that it feels like a thousand years. I just wish that after wherever we're having dinner together and bringing up the possibility of my bunking with someone for the night, that I can relax and recollect my thoughts for a bit. A lot has happened and I've hardly had the time to process any of it.  
As I'm closing in on the outskirts of Ballard and ultimately Seattle itself, I catch a glimpse of some smooth neon lights on the buildings closer to the heart of town, all of them bright shades of bluish white and bright orange. With the glow of the neon and the greenish yellow light from the floating streetlights on either side of me, I notice the sidewalk is weirdly clean. Too clean in fact, like someone had come through and scrubbed down through the cracks of the pavement. I can only think about New York City and if there's any stretch of sidewalk this pristine. Everything smells of new car.  
In fact, I stop at the first crosswalk to let a round little black thing skirt along the storm drain before me like I would for passerby. It's lined with dim dark blue lights and I hear a soft scrubbing sound underneath it. It's a street cleaner.  
I lift my head to behold the sight of the bar on the corner before me. The place has small round windows about the size of my head and a door covered in dark blue circuit board. The cold bricks on the outside are lined with those same floating lights like on the street, but they're soft blue instead of that amber color. Across the street is a tattoo parlor lit up by the same neon lights. There's a cafe next door with dim smoky windows, the bases of which are lit up by even more neon.  
I'm a bum hick walking through a world that's half of a century ahead of everyone else.  
“Joey!” I hear a woman's voice calling me. I reach the corner and peer around the block. I catch a glimpse of a series of lights strung along the awning of the tiny club next door: all of them are strung together by clean white wires. The wires then connect up to a flat black board of what looks like metal.  
“Joey!” she calls me again. I turn my head to the other side of the street to find Nancy and Chris holding hands, and Dominique and Matt huddled together. I peer down the street to make sure no other cars are coming, and then I cross the black pavement to meet up with them. Out of the corner of my eye, another street cleaner scurries up behind me, wiping my tracks clean off of the pavement.  
I step onto the sidewalk and meet up with them: an updraft of breeze blows my hair back from my shoulders with every step.  
“Where's your partner in crime?” Matt asks me as part of his greeting.  
“He couldn't make it—like he had stuff to do back at home,” I answer; it's sort of the truth, given he did nudge me off away from the house. But I don't think they can handle something like what I witnessed back there. I notice Kim and Hiro aren't with them.  
“Where are your partners in crime?” I retort back to them.  
“They're in here,” Chris gestures to the cafe behind them, the one with the smoked windows and the bright lights. “Waiting for us.”  
“Alright, awesome!”  
I follow them into the cafe right as the wind picks up again, and I can sense the rain upon us. The cafe has a black and white square checkerboard floor, much like some of the patterns back at Marcia and Sonia's upholstery shop, and heavy black metal tables with spindly bar stools surrounding them. The whole room is lit with cool blue and bright orange neon lights suspended from the ceiling in glass bulbs. I spot Kim and Hiro seated at the booth against the wall, and the four of them lead me towards them.  
Nancy and Chris slide into the smooth black leather seat next to them; followed by Matt and Dominique, which leaves me to take the seat next to her and across from Hiro. On the side of the table is a smooth sheet of glass the length of my hand stood up by a bundle of white wires running underneath the surface of the table. Hiro presses on the screen with his fingertips and asks us what we all want.  
“Wow,” I remark once our orders are taken.  
“So advanced we don't even need a waiter,” says Kim as a tube slides down from the ceiling and lands onto the surface of the table. The bottom of it flattens out and then fills up part of the way with water. Part of it tapers off before receding back, thus leaving a clean glass of water in its wake. He takes a sip from the glass.  
“Ballard's one of the few neighborhoods around here that's a little slow to the change in technology,” Dominique explains, “all the neon lights and cleanliness is trying to oust all the rusty machines and the rust of the current era. The one big issue is it's just been so quick, all of it having sprung up in a couple of years, beginning in the heart of the city and then fanning out into the surrounding areas. I don't know if you could see them because it's a little too dark outside right now, but there's a lush garden on every rooftop here.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. It keeps the rooftops cool during the summer time and it's kept further away from the chrome and the circuitry to prevent rusting and contamination, which I find to be overkill because it's all water resistant with the rains up here and everything.”  
“Downtown Seattle is far more advanced with it,” Chris joins in.  
“But why is everything clustered here, though?” I ask her.  
“Well, there's the danger of all of this advancement in technology getting out of control. When something novel comes around, it's terrifying at first but then you see the good side of it. The problem with that is it makes you blind to any downsides. Seattle's whole mantra is to keep it all under wraps because we're afraid of it all seeping out into the rest of the country. All of this is experimental so we don't know if any of it will be any good for a larger scale like the continental United States.”  
She picks up her glass of water, which formed from the same way, a tube extended out of the ceiling.  
“And like what Chris said, downtown is in the twenty second century already. The drones and the bionics are coalesced in the heart of downtown.”  
“Are there humans?” I ask her.  
“Yeah, but—they're not what you expect, though. The advancers of all of this have all died because cybernetics can only keep a human alive for so long.”  
“Cyber—Cybernetics,” I repeat. “I'm sorry, I'm kind of a country boy. This is all painfully new to me.”  
“Yeah, and we kind of figured that, too.” She chuckles at me. “Seattle is where it is because there were these people who... gave their lives to the whole thing to advance the city far into the future, farther than anywhere else. They experimented on themselves with what they had before introducing it all on us for our benefit. They were all very old, having been around since the previous century, and they finally broke through enough to give it life. I guess it was too much for their bodies to bear it.”  
“Their heirs are some of the laziest fucks, though,” Chris grumbles, and Nancy nudges him. “Well, they are.”  
“Unfortunately the predecessors of it all have let the power of the city go right to their heads,” Dominique presses on, nonplussed. “Since everything is working fine downtown and in other parts of town, they've decided to let it all do as it pleases.”  
“That's why it's so slow here,” I follow along.  
“Right! You know we have these plasma glasses holding liquid water and the street cleaners outside, but Ballard still has cars that run on gasoline. A couple of the bars across the street still use regular kegs of beer and bottles of liquor. They still have bar backs, too.”  
“The islands—across the Sound from here,” Nancy pipes up, “are really far behind on all the advancement, like it's still the middle of the century over there. It's such that there's no light over there at night.”  
“It's so weird to see a drone over there sometimes,” Hiro notes, “never mind a hydrogen car, but an actual drone.”  
“Speaking of which, this poor boy has no place to sleep tonight,” Dominique points out, setting a hand on my shoulder.  
“Oh, yeah, that's right!” Kim recalls. “Would it bother you at all if you spent the night with me?”  
“Kim's got a really nice comfy couch back at his place,” Matt tells me, “Chris and I have slept on it many times in the past few years.”  
“Nan and I'd offer our place,” Chris himself explains, “but—” He turns to Nancy.  
“It's kind of a mess,” she admits with a shrug. “I just haven't been home and Chris gets lazy at times.”  
I laugh at that. “I hear ya, man.”  
“Messy boys, always needing our help,” Dominique teases me with a grin. Once our food arrives on a drone from the other side of the room, I figure that Dominique a lot, but she's with Matt so I have to keep it cool. But she's been to New York and she knows my name. I still have to figure out Nancy a bit more, but she's a good source of comfort for me at the moment. She did put her arm around me when we were waiting for the guys after all.  
As I'm eating my linguine, I tuck one hand into my pocket and that's when I feel the arrowhead in there. I can only wonder about all of this heavy machinery around us and what she had said about all of the advancement here in Seattle. I also remember what Lars said about wormholes. My hope is he's wrong and that big dumb wormhole closes up before anyone here sees it near that bench.


	21. (bad dreams and ginger ale)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Jesus, I can't touch my penis.   
Jesus, I can't see my feet.  
Jesus, I don't like my penis.”  
-”Exit Stonehenge”, Soundgarden

October 16, 1988. University District of Seattle, Washington.  
It's some time after one o'clock in the morning and I haven't been able to fall asleep here on Kim's couch. I can't stop thinking about everything that's happened the past few days. Well, that and the bloody couch cushions feel like they've been beaten with a baseball bat about a hundred times over.  
The pillow Kim lent me feels more concave than my own stomach. I think about the night I slept on the Greys' couch and I encountered the Man in Black the first time. I also think about their generator and I can't help but wonder exactly how far in advancement the city of Seattle prides itself upon.  
I have all these pieces and somehow they all should make sense but I'm not sure as to how to piece them together. Surely, there's a way to make them fit as I close my eyes to the darkness before me.  
Kim had pulled the drapes on the window to keep the neon blue light show out of his apartment. He has a bachelor pad just like what I have back home, except he has two bedrooms instead of merely one—and he told me he's seeing a lady on top of that—and his bathroom is much more spacious. That said, when I took a shower right before he and I called it a night, I spotted a pocket knife in the spot where the soap should be right next to the faucet. Since the shower door's transparent, I kept my eye on it the whole entire time I showered. It had a similar shape and look as the one I have, except this one has a little blue dot on the handle. It wasn't until I climbed out of the shower and dried off when I managed to examine it better.  
The blue dot is a light, like one on a tape recorder, except I have no idea what could activate it, that is if there's a way. I set back down when I reached for the clean towel: I'd rather not invade Kim's privacy like that.  
I went to bed at a little before midnight there on the lumpy couch in the front room with my feet up on the arm and the heavy horse blanket over me. It's a little tough to sleep with still wet hair, but at this point, my hair is rather trivial.  
I have an uneasy feeling inside of my stomach, and I don't know if it was that linguine served to me out of the holes in the cafe table or the fact my best friend is in the hospital and I have no way of getting a hold of him or Spence. Kim has a phone but he neglected to pay his bill this past month, before they were paid for their new album, so it doesn't work. I'm also not willing to venture out in the rain to use one of the payphones on the block, that is if there are any payphones. I haven't seen one since I left Portland and New York.  
I sigh through my nose as I roll over onto my side.  
I think back to Marcia crying as she kissed me in the back room there. A part of me wishes I could do it again with her because she had soft lips and she is a very good looking girl. In fact, if I could lay with her here on this couch, I would do it. I'd let Dominique join in, too. And Gwendolyn and Lupe. Four girls crawling all over me!  
I'd let Gwendolyn dance for me before she kisses me, then Lupe could caress me down before she serves me a little cup of coffee. Dominique can talk dirty to me, and then I go have a sweet little make out session with Marcia. All of this happening and then we have a big fat orgy together. I'm sexy: Gwendolyn even said it herself. Marcia's lips followed suit and then Dominique's hand on me. That's really all I want: to have these girls on either side of me, feeling me, kissing me, loving me.  
Loving me...  
I open my eyes to see the back cushion right up in my face. I can hear Kim snoring down the hall: I don't know if his lady friend is here, or if she even showed up, or if she's going to show up at all, but all I know is I'm alone again.  
I'm alone again. Alone here on this couch and listening to the torrential rain outside pattering on the rooftop and on the window sill.  
I roll back onto my back so I'm staring straight up at the ceiling. I have those four girls imprinted on my memory.  
Marcia and her thick, full figure, made rounder from things out of her control. If only she could see her own cuteness and the fact she's lovely in her body and the fact she kissed me. I lick my lips when I think of her chest. She pressed up against me: those tits pressed up against my own chest. That soft skin close to me and those smooth lips over mine.  
The lick of my lips turns into a nibble of my bottom lip when I think of Gwendolyn in all of her glitter. She danced for me on my birthday for free and I even thanked her for it. I picture her ass over me and those hips getting rounder when she puts her foot up on the arm of the chair, and the sole thing separating me from her pussy a satin pair of panties.  
To lay next to Lupe in a comfy bed, especially after she takes off her shawl and her nightgown.  
To hear Dominique share something she wrote with me and have her set a hand on the back of mine.  
My pants are feeling tight and it's not from the fact I have an ache in my stomach or from possibly having to get up to take a piss. Why did I leave my pants on after all? I roll my head over to the drapes over the window and I think back to the night I first saw the Man in Black before me. And then it hits me.  
Mrs. Snow isn't here. I don't have my dream catcher behind me so for all I know, the Man in Black could show up again. But I do know one thing is for certain and that's the fact I'm alone in this dark room away from the neon and the falling rain. It's times like this I have to say “fuck it”.  
I reach underneath the blankets to the button on my jeans and undo it. Lifting up my hips, I peel them off of me and leave them straddled around my thighs. I reach down the crotch of my shorts to feel it. I think of those four girls over and over again, their faces going through my mind like a whirlwind.  
I pinch my eyes shut and relax as I let my fingers do the work.  
I part my lips to breathe out at the feeling.  
Oh God. Fuck. I haven't done this in a while because Mrs. Snow always wants to fuck me up because of it.  
I'm groping around. Poking and stroking. Making love to myself.  
Never realized my back was so tight before.  
I push in extra firm with my thumb and that coaxes a grunt from me.  
I don't want to wake up Kim and I try to keep my moaning and groaning to myself and inside of my throat. But the thought of those four girls, those girls right around me, is only making the feeling reach a high point. I tilt my head back against the pillow and leave my mouth open but hardly any sound comes out of my throat. My chest is heaving. My thighs are writhing about underneath me.  
Dominique's with Matt. Marcia, Gwendolyn, and Lupe are back in New York: the former is probably crying herself to sleep at the moment, while the latter two are probably giving some guy a lap dance right now. Four girls. Four girls I want with me but I can't touch them.  
Why.  
But this feeling here is good. It's rising higher and higher and I'm breathing so hard that I feel like I've been running laps around the hockey rink. It's going higher, higher... higher—oh!  
Oh, shit. I need a tissue. Scratch that, I need a few tissues.  
My hope now is that Kim understands it as I have one hand on my head and the other one groping around the floor for that tissue box I had spotted before he turned off the lamp. The edge of the box brushes against the side of my hand and I yank out a couple of tissues to clean up my mess while using the afterglow of the neon as my sole light.  
I'm wiping down the skin and I look down at my own dick resting in my hand, illuminated by the creepy but soft blue light and resembling a ripe zucchini.  
“Italian Stallion,” I whisper, recalling what Gwendolyn had said to me on that first night. I crumple up the tissues in my hand before stuffing him back into my shorts. Really, why did I keep my pants on.  
I sit upright to push off my jeans and lay them over the top of the couch. Once the rush of adrenaline wanes off, Maya comes to mind. The memory of her laying on my own couch, and also the memory of her seeking out comfort in me. While Gwendolyn referred to me as sexy, Maya said I'm the most beautiful man in the world.  
As I lay back down and pull the blanket over my body, I hang onto that comment. The most beautiful man in the world.  
And then I think about her reaction to seeing Lars.  
I also can't stop thinking about that damn scar on Maya's forehead in particular.  
That scar.  
That scar...  
At some point, I finally nod off and I open my eyes to the sight of an old man laying on the ground with his head pressed against the wall so his neck is in an uncomfortable cricking position. I kneel down next to him to see if he's awake, or alive. I reach out to touch him but he doesn't stir in response.  
A white gloved hand grasps onto my wrist but I jerk back and clamber to my feet. I look at the woman right in the face but I know this isn't Mrs. Snow.  
“Sit back down,” she commands me.  
“Why?”  
“Because you're a brat.”  
“What did I do?”  
But she doesn't answer me. Instead, she shoves me down onto the floor next to the old man. The curmudgeon from down the street from Brick emerges out of the shadows behind her with two babies in his arms.  
“Jesus, dude,” I mutter aloud when I think about how many kids he has now.  
“He must be that little Italian brat who thinks he's an Injun,” he remarks. That word is like fingernails on a chalkboard: I clasp my hands to my ears.  
“Damn Injun!” the woman shrieks in a voice so loud it hurts my hearing.  
“We oughta make your rotten carcass into a model, you damn Injun,” he sneers at me. The babies burst out laughing and that's when I try to get up to leave, but my ass is stuck to the floor. My ass is too big that it weighs me down and I can't get up. Or so I think. For all I know, there might be sticky shit all over the floor, like the sticky shit that was coming out of me not too long ago.  
Their infectious laughter morphs into the roars of monsters. The old man next to me rolls over onto his side to reveal the face and the hands of the Man in Black jutting out of his back. I put my hands over the back of my head to protect me, but it's useless at this point. They're going to kill me.  
I jerk myself awake to find I'm back in the living room of Kim's apartment. I have no idea what the time is but it's still dark enough to warrant the neon blue lights outside a bath of glowing light over me. And my stomach still hurts me: if anything, it hurts even more than earlier.  
I sit up and lay a hand over my belly to ease the pain, but sitting up only makes my head spin. Oh, God.  
I want to tell Kim I don't feel good but I don't know if he has anything on hand to help me.  
Careful not to make my head spin even more, I swing my legs over the edge of the couch and stand up. I'm a little dizzy as I walk down the short hall to Kim's bedroom. I push open the door only to be met with that loud snoring. I need something to settle me, though.  
I lean over the silhouette of his body under the blankets and shake him.  
“Hm?”  
“Kim?”  
“Hm, wha? Oh, hey Joe. What're you—”  
“You got any ginger ale?” My voice breaks from keeping my mouth shut the past few hours.  
“Any ginger ale?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I think I do. Why—what's the matter?”  
“My stomach's bothering me, like the cybernetic linguine I had earlier is not sitting well.”  
“Yeah, I'm pretty sure I do. It's in the fridge so it's nice and cold. Clean glasses in the cupboard—”  
“Okay, thank you.”  
And I'm pretty sure he dozes off once I lift up from the bed and walk back out to the hall. I'm going down the carpet in my underwear to the kitchen, something I haven't done since the summer time when Mrs. Snow faded out with the incoming sunshine. I turn on the light, which in turn makes me snap my eyes shut again. I blink several times and then I spot the fridge in front of me.  
I open the door to find a six pack of ginger ales on the top shelf: I pick one out and figure it's better if I drink it right out of the can. As I pop it open, I think of when Maya cleaned my apartment for me while I was out playing hockey all day. Once the fizz hits my tongue, it hits me like lightning.  
That damn rope around her ankles. The fact she's refusing to eat. The fact she's more comfortable around me than Lars. But more importantly, that damn rope tied around her ankles and the fact she was laying there in the storm drain.  
Someone—  
No.  
“Oh, God.” My own voice echoes over the kitchen counters. But it all makes sense now that Maya would behave the way in which she has been with me.  
I take another sip from the can, because this time it's extra hard on me. I turn off the light and head back to the couch. Before I lay back down, I take another large sip of it and set it down on the floor next to the tissue box. The thought of it makes me recoil.  
And I don't want to believe it. But it's the only explanation.


	22. (down by the river)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "My name is Matt Foley, I am a motivational speaker, I am thrice divorced, and I live in a VAN down by the RIVER!"  
-Chris Farley

October 17, 1988. University District of Seattle, Washington.  
Lars had told Kim that I had to stay at his place for another day, which is fine because Kim takes good care of me here in his apartment, but the only issue is that leaves me with nothing to do other than whack off some more and entertain myself--if I wanted to do any of that, I could’ve stayed home with my Mike n Ikes and not come clear across the country. But on the other hand, as long as Mrs. Snow doesn't make an appearance to dance with me I think I'll be fine. But I can't help but feel bored by the time the afternoon rolls around.  
Kim had gone off with Chris, Matt, and Hiro back to their studio to some final touches on their album, and I have no means of getting a hold of Spence to see how Brick's doing in the hospital. I do, however, have a pencil and a pad of lined paper that I found on the coffee table next to the couch, which means I can write down everything that's happened the past few days, from the night Jonny told me I was done leading up to this point. It's all I can do at the moment while I'm by myself. Indeed, I fill out about five pages of paper, front and back.  
At about two in the afternoon, I open the drapes on the window to peer out to the smooth black apartment buildings before me. They all look so plain in the daylight, even with the dense overflowing green gardens nestled upon the rooftops surrounded by the chrome, but I know in a few hours, it all will light up to pure neon.  
And then I remember I don't have to stay here if it's going to be all day, which it will be.  
I return to the couch for my jacket and my pants, and lace up on my shoes. As I'm putting my coat on, I feel the arrowhead pendant in the pocket.  
I pick it out of there as I walk out of the apartment to the hallway. I don't know if this is going to get me into a lot of trouble or not, but I'm doing it anyway. I raise the pendant once I reach the hallway and open up a new wormhole. I clutch it in my hand before climbing inside. I keep my focus on the other end once the soles of my feet leave the ground.  
I fall onto my shoulder upon a stretch of soft grass.  
I open my eyes to the gray overcast sky stretching over a row of oak trees. I recognize the cold snow capped point of Mount Hood off in the distance through the trees.  
But then again, where exactly in Portland did I bring myself to?  
I pick myself up off the ground to take a better look around. Before I do so, I tie the arrowhead pendant around my neck so I don't worry about losing it.  
Behind me is that line of tall scraggly trees; to the right of me stands a bridge leading into a part of town. Meanwhile, to the left is a stretch of river, cold black waters that are moving very slowly. I shiver at the very sight of the water, and I think there's a breeze blowing, but there isn't. It's as still as it was the other day when I first came here. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot something big and black looming towards me on the grass. I recognize her skull head underneath the black hood. My stomach turns at the very sight of her.  
“Death,” I whisper. “Death—no. I'm still not ready yet.”  
Her black cloak floats over the grass in the form of a bunch of tatters. I swallow at the sight of her.  
“Please—I swear to you. I'm not dead.”  
She raises her skeleton hand and gestures for me to move in closer. But I don't know if she wants to harvest me or if she wants to do something else with me. But all I know is the sight of her is making me feel cold again.  
“Follow me,” she coaxes me in a delicate whisper. I peer behind me to the river to make sure no one else is here. Nope—just us here on the shore of this river somewhere around Portland. She drifts back from me, along the grass towards the tree line, and I clutch at the collar of my jacket before following her. The blade of her scythe glimmers behind her head as we approach a bend in the shore which happens to have a thick bush in the way. Death floats around it in a thick black effervescent cloud but I duck into the trees, where I almost fall ass over teakettle into a pile of mulch surrounded by a few of those wooden surveyor stakes.  
I stop myself once I make out the shape of a pile of black boxes, all of which stacked on top of each other. There's no tools, just pitch black boxes and a pile of white wires, some that resemble a lot like the ones back in Seattle.  
“What the hell is all of this?” I wonder aloud. Death floats up next to me, with her meager hands out before her and tatters of her cloak streaking out before her even though there still isn't any wind.  
“What is this?” I ask her again, and she doesn't reply. But rather she floats forward to the boxes, and I step around the mulch and the survey stakes for a better look myself. All of this odd machinery here in the trees. I approach the stacks of boxes to examine the dark silver lettering imprinted on the top edges.  
“'Maxwell Industries,'” I read aloud. “Maxwell, as in my friend Brick?”  
Death once again doesn't answer me but rather floats closer to the ground: the large black holes making up her eye sockets gape back at me.  
“You... look like you want to tell me something,” I admit to her.  
“The young lady you found—Maya,” she begins, “what do you think happened to her?”  
I swallow again as I recall my epiphany from the night before. The very thought of it makes my stomach turn.  
“I think—I think someone tried to torture her,” I sputter out. She floats closer to me with her fingers extended as if she's about to touch me with her caress.  
“Are you sure?” she asks me.  
“Am I sure—? Um, yes.”  
She drifts past me towards the pile of boxes. I watch her float in silence around them to something behind them. She's back there for a little bit before I decide to follow her there.  
She's looming around what looks like a bird bath, a smooth stone basin held up by a concrete base. There's a little bit of water in there.  
I move in closer and when I do, I catch a whiff of alcohol.  
The clouds break open right then and gray sunlight filters in through the trees. A bit of sunlight shines over the inside of the basin and I can see some writing inscribed on the inside.  
“Burrow deep into the earth, and you will find water,” it says. I think back to what Maya said in her zine: “If I burrow deep into the earth, my hope is I don't find any water because I could drown.”  
I turn my head to face Death right as she sinks down to the ground as if she's about to disappear.  
“Not torture,” I mutter aloud. “Not torture? Not torture!”  
Her scythe returns to form in her hand.  
“Back to New York, Joseph,” she whispers to me.  
“Back to New York,” I repeat, “you want me to go back to New York? What for?”  
Once again, she doesn't reply but rather dissipates out into the trees. I fetch up a sigh.  
“Back to New York it is—” I repeat, taking out the arrowhead from underneath my shirt collar.


	23. (sonia the fink)

October 17, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
I'm back home. I can sense it. I feel the carpet underneath my hands and my face. I can smell the clean aroma from when Maya scrubbed the place.  
Indeed, once I open my eyes, I recognize the hallway stretched before me.  
I push myself off of the floor and lean my back against the door panel.  
I came back home. I took Lars' pendant and now I'm back home. But Death told me to come back so I have to do the one thing that means the most to me right now.  
I turn my head to look down at the doorknob: without hesitating, I swipe my key from the hook before unlocking the door and heading outside, where I find the sun has already set upon upstate New York. I lock the door behind me and then head out to the middle of the complex. I'm taking the short way to the street because it's urgent.  
It's getting dark but I don't care. I'm only focused on two things as the icy cold wind from the lake blows through my hair, all the way down to the roots. I peer over my shoulder at the rest of the town by the lake, where it's buttoned down for the incoming night and the sole light emerges from the streetlights and the power plant in the hills. After seeing everything in Seattle not even a few moments ago, I feel like I've gone back in time.  
I reach the sidewalk, where most of the ice has melted, which is good because I'm not wearing my boots. The House of Grey lies straight ahead, with the windows dimly lit from their lamp and the roof still coated with a thick blanket of snow.  
Within time, I reach the edge of the property and the walkway up to the front door. Barney's car is parked in the driveway. Good. They're home.  
I reach the front step and knock on the door panel four times with two knuckles.  
Silence.  
I knock on the door again, this time with my open hand.  
I hear a woman's voice behind the panel. She's followed by the clicking of a lock and the door swinging open. I recognize her kinky hair.  
“Sonia!” I declare. “What're you doing here?”  
“I should ask you the same thing,” she replies as part of her greeting.  
“Are Barney and Billy home?”  
“Who is it?” I recognize Billy's voice floating out from behind her.  
“It's Joey,” she calls over her shoulder.  
“Let him in!” Barney calls from the kitchen. She steps out of the way to let me into their cozy warm house which smells like roasted chicken and potatoes. I peer about the room: Maya must be in one of their bedrooms. Billy emerges from the kitchen with a dish towel slung over his shoulder.  
“Hey, man, what's up?” he greets me; Barney, who's at the table reading a book, nods at me.  
“I came to see how Brick's doing, and also Maya's doing.”  
“She's taking a nap in Barn's bed right now—the docs all say Brick is in stable condition, but they don't know when he'll be home. And I'm making dinner.”  
“I was just gonna say—it smells incredible in here.”  
“Also, your parents called,” Barney pipes up, “—like an hour ago. They got home real early this morning and Mama Belladonna says she can't wait to have a birthday dinner with her baby on Friday.”  
“Last night?” I demand, feeling my heart skip a couple of beats and my face grow warm. “Oh, I guess from the blizzard.”  
“Yeah, that, and—some weird layover bullshit over in Boston. Your dad didn't really go into it but I guess it was a complete nightmare over there getting train tickets to get back home.”  
“Well, at least they're home,” I point out with a relieved sigh. “That's all that matters to me.”  
I turn my head to face Sonia. “Anyways, what're you doing here?” I ask her again.  
“I drove Spence home from the hospital, like he called me from here because he couldn't get a ride, 'cause you know, he gave a fair amount of blood to Brick—”  
“Oh, right, right. Jeez, you had to drive all the way out from Rochester just to get him?”  
“No, he was down in Syracuse,” she corrects me, and I gape at her.  
“They took Brick all the way down to Syracuse?”  
“Yeah. Some weird technological magic down there that's more state of the art and sophisticated or something or other.”  
“State of the art? It was a blood transfusion, though.”  
“Well, I guess he lost more than blood,” Barney adds.  
“Oh, really.” That makes my heart sink. Brick and I have been playing hockey for years; what's he gonna do now?  
“If it makes you feel better, it shocked me, too,” Sonia continues. “Like I was like, 'are you shitting me, you guys are down in Syracuse?' I had to take a day off from work and school and everything. Poor Marcia was even considering closing up shop for a day because we were understaffed and she almost couldn't handle it, too.”  
“Well, God damn. I'm really sorry you guys had to go through all that. I wish I could've done something.”  
“You were with Lars, though,” she insists. “You know, you guys were trying to figure out what's her—” She nods down the hall in mentioning of Maya. “—what's her deal. Nothing to worry about, Joe. I promise.”  
“Yeah, I second that,” Billy joins in from behind me. “By the way, dinner's gonna be ready in about—twenty minutes or so. You can join us if you'd like, Joey.”  
“I'd love to, man. Besides, it smells good in here, and I still don't have anything to eat back at my place, either.”  
I peel off my jacket right as Sonia strides over to the couch for a seat. I hang up my coat on the hook next to the door before I join her in the living room; no sooner do I take a seat in the big comfy recliner chair next to her when she opens her mouth again, this time with a glimmer in her eye.  
“Do you love your mom?” she asks in a low voice.  
“Do I love my mom? Very much so,” I answer to her. “The thought of her makes me all warm and silky inside, even on the coldest of nights. I ain't no mama's boy, though. Why?”  
“Oh, just curious…” She twirls a lock of hair around her finger. I raise an eyebrow at her.  
“What you gettin' at?” I lower my voice to a near whisper.  
“What am I getting at?” she repeats it, holding her hand right next to her face and with the hair still entwined around her finger.  
“Yeah. You don't ask someone a question like that unless you have something else behind you, like a 'buttering up' of sorts.”  
“Nah, if I was buttering you up, I'd literally be buttering you up. Slathering you from head to toe with melted butter.”  
“That'd be a mess,” I point out.  
“But I assure you there's no buttering up here, though. Not if I take you over to Smell the Magic, Marcia's bakery, and give you some butter to rub all over your chest and your stomach.”  
That gets a chuckle out of me. “Then why'd you ask me?”  
“Like I said, just curious…” She continues to twirl her hair around her finger. “I like a guy who loves his mom. It tells me he's sweet and he knows how to treat a lady.”  
She scans me over and I try to relax there in the chair, but she makes me a little nervous.  
“You're actually—very good looking,” she remarks. It's not Marcia, but I know she means well. At least I hope she means well. “Belladonna, your last name is?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Italian… alright. That's rad.”  
“I'm also Iroquois.”  
“Ooh, sensual. That explains the hair and the big puppy dog eyes. My last boyfriend was Filipino so there's just something about brown boys that—I dunno.”  
Sonia licks her lips as she drops her gaze to my chest.  
“What?” I ask her. “Tell me.”  
She nibbles her bottom lip and then her tongue shoots out of her mouth. “Something about brown boys and exotic boys that gets me… hot.”  
I feel my muscles in my stomach tense up. I really hope she means well here.  
“Hey, Joe, you wanna go check up on Miss Maya for us?” Billy offers me.  
“Uh, yeah, sure.” Well, as long as it gets me away from her. I climb to my feet and make my way down the hall to Barney's bedroom. I make out her silhouette laying there in the middle of the bed. I hear her breathing heavy from sleep. She wasn't tortured, and then there was that inscription on the bird bath. There's also “Maxwell Industries”. I'll figure this one out before she starves in her sleep.  
I have no idea if she's even eaten the whole time she's been here at the House of Grey. I step into the room in hopes to wake her.  
And I feel someone grab my ass.  
I turn around to find myself face to face with Sonia. She clutches at my shirt as she pushes up against me.  
“You're so hot—I want you,” she whispers to me. She parts her lips as she brings her face close to mine.  
“You're really sexy...” she repeats it, and she lets out a soft groan from inside of her throat. But I'm not feeling it like I do with Gwendolyn or Dominique.  
“Kiss me,” she begs me in a hushed voice, hushed so as to not wake up Maya or not grab their attention? I really don't feel like it. But she's thirsty, leaning in closer to my face.  
“Sonia?” Barney calls from down the hall.  
“What?” she scoffs, letting go of me.  
“How's Maya doing?”  
“She's still sleeping, man,” I answer him. She turns back around to scan me over there in the dim light: I can see her eyes darting down to my hips and my thighs and then back up again. She puckers her lips at me as if to get a kiss from me. But she never does get a kiss from me.  
And Maya doesn't wake up the whole entire span of dinner time, which bothers me probably more than Sonia wanting to play footsie with me under the table.  
She brushes up against my shin with the arch of her foot. I try not to move so much to not gain attention from Barney and Billy.  
“So how's Seattle?” Billy asks me.  
“Seattle's about a thousand years ahead of everyone,” I admit; but then again, I've got a girl I'm not even attracted to rubbing up against me as I'm trying to talk to my friends and eat my dinner.  
“Like how?”  
“Was it Seattle or Portland you went off to?” Barney follows suit.  
“It was both,” I clear my throat, flinching my leg away from her. “But yeah, Seattle's got a big bright downtown area which is like… the town of tomorrow or something like that.”  
“Wow. Just Seattle?” Billy continues, picking up a forkful of potatoes.  
“Yeah. Portland isn't even there yet. I also saw something called 'Maxwell Industries.'”  
“Maxwell Industries? As in, Brick?”  
“Yeah, it interested me, too. I was wondering if either of you guys know anything about it.”  
They glance at one another; out of the corner of my eye, I notice Sonia holding the tines of her fork to her lips as if trying to entice me.  
“I'm afraid not, man,” Barney confesses with a shrug of the shoulders.  
“Also, how's Maya doing?” I ask them, turning my attention away from her.  
“We haven't been able to get her to eat anything,” Billy continues, his gaze dropping, “we have been able to get her to bathe, though.”  
“Well, that's good.”  
“Yeah, she was starting to smell like… swampy, almost. So I finally talked her into taking a nice hot bath just last night. She cleaned up nicely, like I thought her hair was black at first.”  
“Haven't found out anything about her?” Barney asks me.  
“Afraid not. Well, I kinda did with—Lars was telling me about her zine called 'after the watershed', and it was there I was able to find some bit about her. She's English and she's a writer, and it sounds like she had kind of a rough past. Don't know anything else other than that, though. I have a couple of guesses, like maybe she was tortured.”  
“I don't think she was tortured,” Sonia pipes up out of the blue; she's still holding the tines of the fork near her lips.  
“You don't?” I feel my throat close up at the sound of her voice.  
“No.” The silence falls over the table. “Baby, I've had enough sex to know torture from other things.”  
“You… think she was—”  
“I know for a fact. In fact, after dinner here—I volunteered to take her over to Rochester for a little rape kit.” She turns her attention to Billy at the opposite end of the table. “Pass the salt, please.”


	24. (alone inside my mind)

October 21, 1988. Camillus, New York.  
My parents had taken me out for my birthday dinner over at Snarky's, after I had told them about it on the way there. All the while, Mom had her arm around me. I leaned over the table top with my left arm around her and my right holding onto my fork as I ate up my big fat bowl of angel hair pasta with zucchini and summer squash and a bit of tomato sauce. My dad and I shared a bottle of white wine; yeah, I don't drink anymore, but it was an offer I couldn't refuse, especially since he told me it was him. For dessert, we had good old New York cheesecake. It was all too sweet for words the whole entire night and I went home with them to their little house there nestled near the Bitters, resting on the outskirts of Camillus with that warm feeling inside of me again.  
I dared not tell them about Brick even though I toyed with the idea for a few hours that evening. I have no idea how I would even bring that up to them. What would I say, “my best friend got his dick caught in something and my other best friend donated a bunch of blood to him because I was being looped around in circles by a mad scientist who's more random than me?”  
But once I walked into the guest room and with my jacket off of me part of the way, I was already too sleepy to even consider it. Mom had kept that old championship ring I had earned in high school in the top drawer of the nightstand next to the bed, and I recalled it from when Billy and I went through a phase of wearing those in our junior year: it's nothing special, just a little silver hoop with a chevron on the top side. I remember it only fits my pinkie finger; so here I am, laying on my parents' guest bed with this old ring on my finger and a full stomach. Sometimes this is all I want in life, especially now with Anthrax out of the picture.  
But as I'm laying here on my back, I can't help but think of Brick there in the hospital. He's about fifteen minutes away: I could take a bus over there if I wanted, but it's already too dark and I don't know what the visiting hours are over there. Sonia didn't elaborate on it but for all I know, Spence could still be there.  
There's a phone in there in the bedroom, right on top of the other nightstand next to the bed. I take a seat on the edge of the bed and pick up the receiver before dialing Spence's phone number.  
I hold it up to my ear and hear it ring four times before it reaches the answering machine.  
“Dammit—” I hang it up, and I still don't know if he's home at all. I can't help but picture Spence laying in the other side of the room, right next to Brick. Both of them with needles in their arms and hooked up to machines. They're both fighters: we're hockey players. We're tough. We're used to breaking things, hitting our heads and our legs on hard surfaces and sharp edges, and letting things slide out of our control. We're used to grueling games and the late nights where we all seek refuge in the nearby Denny's there. Brick was the one who came up with the name “the Frozen Circle Jerks” because we all could find ways to whack off and please ourselves in the hardest of circumstances. But for some reason, this has me recoiling back in worry.  
I'm fretting over all of this. But my body's got another idea for me.  
I'm so warm. I'm so soft. I feel so good inside. I'm so tired.  
I need to get them out of there. I need to visit Brick.  
Fucking… I need to get a hold of Spencer.  
And then there's Maya. Little Maya and the weird scar on her head. I still don't understand that or where that came from.  
I'm waiting to hear back from Sonia herself about her, and I don't know how long a rape kit takes, but I hope we have some results soon.  
God, this tension is absolutely killing me.  
I think about the pieces of paper I found in Kim's apartment. I don't know if I brought them with me, but if I don't get any answers soon, I need to start yanking up my damn boot straps and connecting some dots myself. Lars keeps jerking me around and no one's telling me anything.  
Speaking of which, I wonder if he knows about this, like if he has any news whatsoever from Sonia given they know each other. I can hope that anyway.  
Maybe there's something else Lars isn't telling me, aside from the fact he never told me why he was in Black Orchid with me the other day. I'm itching to know about it, but I'm also itching to know if there's something Brick and his family hasn't told me. He's my best friend, we've known each other for years, and yet there seems to be another hallway I have never uncovered and am just now doing it. Maybe they know something about all of the technological advancements in Seattle that none of the gang there knows about.  
But then there's Dominique, and if I can just get my head back into place inside of my jeans, I can wonder if she knows something about it. She's the one who told about all of it, after all. She also knew my name. Maybe it's from the fact she's in journalism, I don't know.  
All of this is connected in some way, I just know it. But on the other hand, something about this is very wrong.  
Something is missing. Someone's lying to me.  
My best friend is in the hospital and I have a bunch of girls on my ass.  
I found a girl who probably had something horrible happen to her and the clock is ticking.  
I have to get Dominique to talk again. Maybe she's the one with the answers. The last thing I think of as I'm drifting off to sleep is Maya's zine and that one line about burrowing deep in the earth and the hope that she doesn't find water. Well, my hope is that I do find some water because at the end of the day, I need to know what happened to her.


	25. (matt and dominique's house)

October 22, 1988. Seattle, Washington.  
I had left my parents' house in Camillus after breakfast, telling them I was going to be back soon before they knew it. I needed to visit Brick because he had something for me as part of my birthday. I hate lying to my parents, though. I always have. But I don't really have much other choice because I don't know how to explain his condition to them otherwise.  
My piece of crap car was just good enough to drive me over to Syracuse, and then I remembered Sonia never told me which hospital they took him into. Knew someone's been lying to me.  
Needless to say, I drove around the ring in the center of town, and I was determined to keep going around it, all in search of the place with a guy named Walter Maxwell in their records. But luck was on my side as I managed to find him in the next hospital the secretary at the front desk of the first had told me about, near the southern edge of town. I got there at about ten thirty, right as visiting hours were opening up.  
I took the first parking spot closest to the big front doors and asked around for my best friend. As far as I knew, it was just him there.  
The secretary told me he was housed in room twenty six on the second floor but I needed to proceed with caution in through the corridor. When I asked her why, she told me, and I quote, “you're too soft.”  
I had no idea what she meant by that, but I kept her word in the back of my mind as I pressed onward into the hospital hallway. I brushed past some nurses and people on stretchers and in wheelchairs. All the while, I couldn't help but think back to the video we made for “Madhouse.” God, it's memories like that I think back to last week. What went wrong.  
On top of everything else going on, I never got a straight answer there and it kills me.  
Well, I told myself, first things first. I need to visit Brick. That is if I can.  
Indeed, when I took the overly clean stairs up to the second floor, and I opened the door there on the landing, the whole entire corridor there was blacked out save for a single row of golden lights on the ceiling, and dense bundles of wiring and all manner of neon lights decorated the walls all the way down to the far end. It was just like downtown Seattle, but concentrated in a single wing of a hospital. Hampers holding everything from dirty laundry to used needles lined the floor, and the whole level smelled of detergent. A low hum emerged from the floor beneath my feet.  
I was wary of heading down the hall there because of the thought of falling sick from exposure to something. But I turned my head to the right at another corridor, one running perpendicular to me and the long low pane of glass stretched across the wall. Indeed, I spotted a door cutting the pane in half and a squarish wooden plaque on the front panel reading a number twenty six.  
I stepped over to the window for a peer inside of the room. There he was, laying flat on his back on a pure white gurney with a blanket pulled up to his chest and with a pair of needles, one in each arm. He lay there with his eyes closed, the expression on his face serene, and his body still. His complexion had washed out with the blood loss, even after Spence gave him some of his blood. I spotted the heart monitor above his bed, and the green line moving in steady motion.  
I sighed through my nose as I leaned my head in closer to the window to see if he was alone in there. Machines stood up against the wall on the other side of the room. There was a small window on the opposite wall in there. But no Spence.  
I also had no idea if the door was locked or not, but I dared not risk it. I stood there, watching his chest rise and fall in steady motion. Maybe if I asked Mrs. Hamilton what truly happened that night then maybe I could uncover a straighter answer. But who knows if she will, and I didn't really feel like paying them a visit, either.  
I tossed my hair back and remembered what I had thought from the night before to pay Matt and Dominique a visit after the fact. I decided to leave the wing first before I let the arrowhead do its job.  
But before I did anything, I turned back to Brick, my best friend and the fact I couldn't save him from that night. I pressed my hand on the glass, with the ring on my pinkie finger making a gentle clink in response. I hoped he still had his ring as I gazed on at him laying there, still breathing steady with his slumber. My throat began to close up at the sight of him. I could have saved him, and yet I didn't.  
“I'm so sorry, man,” I said aloud before I let my hand slide down the glass.  
I turned away and headed for the stairwell once again.  
Upon striding through the big sliding double doors, I stood on the curb outside of the hospital there and reached down the inside of my shirt for the arrowhead pendant. I hadn't taken that damn thing off since my second encounter with Death in Portland, but I took it off again to open up a new wormhole outside of the hospital there.  
X marks the spot. The veil emerged from thin air. Once I noticed I was alone there in the parking lot, I climbed inside and focused on Matt and Dominique's house, wherever it was in Seattle.  
I writhed through the darkness, crawling on my stomach all the way to the other side.  
That time I fell headfirst onto a tiny square of soft grass and let my back and my ass fall out after me as if I was doing a somersault.  
I'm still laying here on the grass, just trying to process what happened at the hospital there in Syracuse. I rub my eyes before sitting upright.  
I'm met with a cute little one story house lined with soft blue and with a dark roof that's already strewn over with Christmas lights. Suspended from the awning over the front porch is a pair of fake witches on broomsticks.  
Today's Saturday, and they're three hours behind New York, which means Dominique must be either off from work or she's having breakfast at the moment.  
As a matter of fact, once I climb to my feet, I take a peek in through the front window there to my left and I recognize her face as it's staring out to the street behind me. I wave at her and she gasps at the sight of me.  
I watch her stand up from the table and disappear back into the room.  
Then I hear a click from the front door. It swings open and she's standing there in her hot pink bathrobe and a pair of blue and yellow striped socks.  
“Hey, Joey, what're you doing here?” she asks me. I stride over to the door step to greet her.  
“I want to ask you some things—I just feel like you're one to talk to because you're a journalist and everything.”  
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Come on in.”  
I enter the front room of their house; to the right is the tiny living room with a big luxurious dark brown couch in front of a low coffee table and a TV with rabbit ears over the top. To my left is the kitchen which leads into the dining room with the small square table with a white top: beneath the edge of the bay window are a pair of rich red leather cushions. She stands before me with her hands in her robe pockets.  
“Uh—would you like a cup of coffee?” she offers me.  
“Oh, yes please. I already ate, but I can never resist a cup of Joey.”  
She chuckles at that, and then her smile fades away; she sniffles the front of my jacket upon coming closer to me.  
“You smell like iodine,” she notes, taking a mug out of the cupboard next to her head. “Have you been in a hospital?”  
“I was visiting a good friend of mine—had a—” I clear my throat. “—a little accident. He lost a lot of blood.”  
“Oh, Jesus. Wait, was it Lars?” She gapes at me.  
“Oh, no. Different guy.”  
“Ah. Well—is he okay?”  
“Yeah. I hope so.”  
“You hope so?” She picks up the glass carafe from the coffee maker and pours me a cup.  
“Cream?” she asks upon sticking it back into place.  
“Just a little bit.” She nods as she takes the bottle of cream out of the fridge to my right. I watch her pour a bit into the mug, and I watch it swirl to the surface.  
“Perfect,” I tell her, flashing her an okay symbol. She puts it back and, once she closes the fridge door with her hip which I find a little sexy, hands me the mug.  
“So what'd you wanna ask me?” she recalls, giving her nappy hair a toss, showing me her neck all the while.  
“You know an awful lot about Seattle,” I tell her, bringing the mug up to my lips.  
“Well, yeah,” she replies with a slight chuckle. “Dominique Waters gets around when it comes to investigative journalism. I follow my nose to the latest scoop. I know it when I sense it.”  
“Is that how you found out about all the cyber—whatever it is, that's in the heart of downtown right now?”  
“Well, yes. And also no.”  
“No?” I hold the mug back away from my mouth a bit so she can still see my full face.  
“I pretty much watched it all rise up before I left for New York. I saw all the hydrogen cars come in—like the one Nancy drives, but that was a gift from her school, though. Everything else followed suit. I knew it was going to get—”  
She drops her gaze to the belt of my jeans.  
“—a little too big for its britches.”  
“Do you know anything at all about—something called Maxwell Industries?” I take a sip of the hot coffee: the lush beany flavor hits me right square in the mouth.  
“Maxwell Industries is the driving force behind the rise of everything in Seattle. A multi billion dollar investment consisting of twelve heirs who've got nothing to do than to sit on their butts all day with their thumbs shoved high up them. Why do you ask?”  
“Well,” I tell her once I swallow it down, “I was in Portland the other day and—I happened to find some things out in the woods from Maxwell Industries.”  
“Out in the woods? Was it doing out in the woods?”  
“No idea.”  
She squints her eyes at me.  
“Wait a minute, what were you doing in Portland? Especially when you knew Lars didn't have a room for you to stay in?”  
“It's complicated,” I reply, reluctant.  
“It's complicated,” she repeats.  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even for me, it's complicated.”  
She runs her tongue along the front of her teeth before parting her lips at me. I can see her pupils dilating.  
“Is there something you're not telling me, Joey?” I nibble on my bottom lip and she raises an eyebrow.  
“I think you're gorgeous,” I blurt out, and she chuckles at me and folds her arms over her chest.  
“You know I'm in a committed relationship,” she points out.  
“Yeah, but—” I freeze right in place with the cup of coffee right in front of my chest. The tip of her tongue runs along the edge of her teeth. She flutters her eyelashes at me.  
“That still doesn't answer what you were doing down in Portland, especially since Nancy is back at school now.”  
“Let's just say I got kinda bored at Kim's place. There's a lot going on right now.”  
“A lot going on in your pants?”  
I nibble on my bottom lip again and I take another sip of coffee.  
“Is there a lot going on inside that robe?”  
“I dunno. You tell me, big boy.” She lunges for me and I hold out the cup so I don't spill on either of us. She presses her body against mine. The one thing separating us is a bit of hot pink satin.  
“Don't tell Matt, please,” she pleads to me, kissing my lips.  
“Of course, of course—” And she kisses me again. I set the mug down on the counter before I lead her into the living room. I take off my jacket and the butterflies are swirling inside of my stomach. I can't believe this is happening but I want it.  
I lay down on the love seat, flat on my back, and she unties the belt on her robe. She's wearing nothing but these little blue satin panties and a rich dark blue velvet camisole. She lets her robe fall to the floor before she climbs on top of me.  
She opens the button on my jeans. I stare right into her face so I feel her pulling down the band of my underwear.  
“Like a horse,” she breathes out, and I feel her caressing me.  
“Go comatose for me, baby,” is the one thing that comes to mind. Her eyes dart up to my face and she licks her lips at me.  
“You said you already ate—I hope you have room for seconds.”  
She slides her panties down her hips and I'm met with her bare crotch.  
“Eat up, big boy,” she tells me in a husky voice as she lays her panties over the back of the love seat.  
“Only if you eat up, baby doll,” I retort as she puts her ass right in my face. I let my tongue do the talking right over that spot so it gets nice and wet. Meanwhile, she's tugging on my dick like it's a spoonful of frosting. Her hands clutch at my hips, while mine are pressed onto the inward curves of her body, right above her hips. I feel her lips go all the way down to the base, and I gasp at the feeling. It's a rush of blood right to my other head and I give it back by licking with my whole tongue, right over her clit. Her ass is right over my face, but I really don't care one way or the other. I'm getting down with Dominique while it's just the two of us here.  
She's gotta be coming soon, I'm sure of it.  
She lifts her mouth from me and starts to fondle me with her fingers.  
I'm breathing heavy from the feeling there and from the fact I'm eating her out. She touches me, ever so light touches down the sides of my dick. Then she rolls over onto her back right next to me, and almost kicks me right in the face with her sock foot. Her tongue lashes out from her mouth as a curly strand of hair falls down over her face.  
“I'm gonna make you come,” she warns me, still in that husky voice and with a glimmer in her eye.  
“Not if I do it first,” I retort to her, clasping onto her ankles. I slide off of the couch onto the floor and almost take her down with me, but she clutches to the cushions. I lift myself up using nothing more than my knees. I roll her over onto her stomach and push her ankles down to the edge of the cushion so I'm met with her bare ass. My pants are already down by my ankles and she already pretty much took off my underwear.  
I've got her there with me as I thrust forward.  
I'm free wheeling.  
A free wheeling Injun.  
“Oh—fuck! God! Wow! Holy shit!” she chokes out with every poke and thrust right into the spot where I licked her. At one point, she gasps and follows it up with a short screech.  
“Shit, I'm coming! I'm coming!” I pull back and smirk at the nappy back of her head. I let go of her ankles and give her a light tap on the butt before reaching over her back to her face. I'm pushing the strands of hair away from her face when her arm jerks back at me, right over my chest.  
I fall ass over teakettle next to the side of the coffee table and land on the floor, on my back, with my pants down. I don't see her lunge over me, but I do feel her lips press onto the skin right under my belly button. Oh God, that makes me feel lighter than air.  
I feel even lighter when she's kissing me all the way back down to my crotch. I'm at her mercy when she puts her lips there again. I'm weak. Not even a minute ago I had a hold on her. Now the tables have turned. She sucks so hard on me that I gasp and give her a gentle groan from the inside of my throat.  
She goes down low and that coaxes a low moan of sorts. She then lifts up and I don't know if she's going to swallow or not. But then she sinks down low again and that brings out an even louder moan from me. She repeats it again, until I'm shrieking like I did on Anthrax's song “Armed and Dangerous.” The sound of my own voice bounces off the walls of the living room and that's when she lets go of me. Out of breath, I lay there for a minute with my mouth wide open so she can hear me groaning. I then feel her pat my stomach with both hands. I open my eyes to look at her grinning face.  
“You're good,” I compliment her, showing her my open hand.  
“Let me reiterate. There's something you're not telling me.”  
“I found a girl who may've been raped about a week ago—she's getting tested for it as we speak back in New York state.”  
“Now, we're talkin'. And I was hoping I'd make you do those Anthrax screams, you nasty naughty boy. Now get dressed. Matt might be gone for a few more hours, but I have to go to work at noon.”


	26. (nancy's sorta new dress)

October 22, 1988. Seattle, Washington.  
“So what’s this young lady’s name again?” Dominique asked me as she put on her raincoat.  
“Maya,” I replied, running my fingers through my hair.  
“Maya--?”  
“Sorensen. She’s English and of Norwegian immigrants.”  
“I think I’ve heard her name before.”  
“Lars knows her... somewhat. He keeps telling me all of these things about her but I keep running into dead ends.”  
“Ah, so that’s why you came to me.” She flashed a wink at me, and I gave her a shrug of the shoulders. She adjusted the lapels of her coat and tied the belt around her waist.  
“So what’re you gonna do?” she asked me.  
“Me? I'm not sure. Probably walk around--I don’t Seattle very well, so I want to get to know this place better.”  
“There’s a coffee house right down the block here. You can go there if you’d like.”  
“I just might. You know for lunchtime and whatnot.” I showed her a little smirk.  
“And not a word to Matt about anything that happened here,” she advised me in a low voice, wagging her finger. “I don’t need my boyfriend to find out I was doing it with another guy, albeit another guy we just met.” She leans in closer to my face for a light kiss on my lips, and then she pulls back for a wink at me.  
“Not a single word.”  
Before she stepped back to the door, she clutched the seat of her pants.  
“You sure got me good, though,” she remarked, rubbing her ass. “A little too good, might I add.” She blew me a kiss before stepping outside to the gray morning.  
That was a little more than an hour ago: I’m still left alone in Matt and Dominique’s house laying on the couch, regathering my bearings, and thinking of what to do next before I know she’s gone off. I then leave the house myself because I know he’ll be home later on.  
I’m walking down the street with my hands in my jacket pockets and feeling the light drizzle of rain falling onto my head. It’s nothing like Portland here, where the neighborhood was quiet and lined with lush trees. Here, I can behold the view of the skyline and the little green and blue lights along the sides of the buildings. It’s not even nighttime and they’re starting to light up.  
I’m looking for the coffee house in question but I don’t really see any place like that, though.  
I do however, catch glimpse of something black out of the corner of my eye on the other side of the street. I turn my head to look. Nothing there: just a small house with a black roof next to a big black dumpster.  
I reach the corner where I’m met with not one, but two street cleaners running around in the storm drains down by my feet. Just like the one in Ballard that night, they’re moving about in silence, but this time, it looks like they’re picking up rain water from the storm drains.  
Interesting.  
“Hey, Joey!”  
I glance up from the bustle in the storm drain to see Nancy and Chris on the opposite corner of the street. She’s got on a little red and white striped dress with a low neckline right underneath her raincoat whereas he’s wearing a long black cloak over a black jacket. I take a glimpse either way before crossing: there’s a couple of street cleaners crossing the path behind me, but there’s no one coming my way. The drizzle picks up a little bit once I reach the corner and Chris guides us around a corner to the safety of a grated awning hanging off of a nearby house.  
“I like this,” I gesture to her dress under her raincoat once we're in place.  
“This is my new-to-me dress,” she explains, putting her one hand on the lapels, and I can make out the edge of a black sleeve right underneath her coat.  
“Your sorta new dress,” I add to it feeling the smirk cross my face.  
“Yeah, exactly!” The drizzle falls upon us even harder and I sense it's about to turn into a full fledged rain shower.  
“So what you doin’?” Chris asks me after pushing back a strand of his black curls behind his ear.  
“Eh, just taking a walk. Thinking of getting something to eat later on. Dominique told me there’s a little coffee place around here--I might go there later on...”  
“Nancy’s got an art contest in about an hour, and then we’re gonna have our release party for our new album tonight.” That must be the black thing underneath her coat: that’s her entry.  
“You can join us if you’d like,” she offers.  
“I’d love to. I’d like to see what you got in terms of the artsy kind of... way of life.”  
She giggles at me.  
“So where are we headed?” I ask them, flattening the top of my hair and feeling the rain water sink down to the roots.  
“Right down this way.” Chris points down the street to my left, and nothing more, I follow them up the street with the rain on our heads and shoulders. They lead towards a low cement block wall lining the other side of the sidewalk. We’re met with a cluster of low pale brick buildings, and then I realize we’re at Nancy’s school.  
She guides us into the double glass front door; before I follow them inside, I once again see something black moving about out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look and find nothing there. I swear I saw something, and it hung there long enough for me to make out a movement, but there’s nothing.  
I follow Chris and Nancy into the front office of her school, where we’re met with a rather decent sized crowd and a row of tables on the other side of the room. I linger back against the side of the room as she goes ahead to hand in her entry for the show, just out of patience as well as courtesy. Meanwhile, Chris takes her jacket so we can all see her sorta new dress for ourselves; and then he ducks into the crowd. Now I’m alone again.  
“Joey--” a voice to the left of me calls out over the low chatter of the crowd.  
I turn to find out who called my name. Nothing more than the side of the wall and a couple of chairs before the front door. First the black thing, now the voice. I return my attention to the sight of Nancy handing in her piece. Then I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn again to be met with Dominique with a bunch of papers tucked under her arm.  
“Hey,” I greet her. “How’d you find me?”  
“Well, when you said you were taking a walk, I remembered the deadline for Nancy’s competition was today. And so I knew you’d run into her and Chris at some point. Sure enough, when I came here on my lunch break, I saw you were here.”  
“What’s all this?” I gesture to the papers under her arm.  
“Important stuff, and also I found a great deal of sources behind her that tie her back to both where she’s from originally, in Nottingham, England, but also to Boston, to the Bronx and Staten Island neighborhoods of New York City, to Raleigh, and to--New Orleans, of all places.”  
“What the fuck--why New Orleans?”  
“I don’t really know. But I found her history traces through a series of different households all over the northeastern United States. New Orleans was kind of an outlier. I guess she lived there the longest so there’s more about her down there.”  
“Live there the longest?”  
“Yeah. She’s a foster child. Been through all manner of homes because I guess neither of her parents had good enough guardians to take care of her.”  
I press my hands to my hips  
“So we have to go to New Orleans now?” I ask her.  
“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” she clarifies, “but it is a lead, though. It’ll tell you more about what happened to her.”  
She adjusts the papers tucked under her arm before speaking again.  
“And besides, Chris and Matt have the release party for Ultramega OK later tonight.”  
“Oh, yeah, Chris told me about that.”  
“Are you coming to that?”  
“I might as well.”  
She leans in closer to my face yet again.  
“Again, not a word to Matt--or to Chris and Nancy for that matter,” she tells me right into my ear.  
“Of course, of course.”  
“Hey, there’s Dominique!” Nancy declares from in front of us.  
“Nancy with a cute dress,” she replies, beaming at her.  
“Yeah, I’ll say,” I add to it, and Dominique flashes me a raise of the eyebrow and what looks like a dirty look.  
“Would you like to join us over at Dick’s for the beginning of the release party?” she offers; I have to stifle a chuckle at that.  
“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Dominique insists, “--I’ve got a lot of stuff to do today.”  
“But I’ll come with you, though,” I take it up.  
“Alright! Party time begins with Mr. Joe.”


	27. (old books and a really bad headache)

October 22, 1988. Seattle, Washington.  
“Well, that had to have been one of the best burgers I've eaten in my life.”  
I'm not exaggerating when I say that, either.  
We're sitting inside of this bright lit restaurant called Dick's, just finishing up our lunch. I've got the napkin pressed to my lips: it was perfectly grilled and seasoned, while the veggies could not have been crispier. I had wolfed up my French fries because they were crispy and nice and hot, fresh out of the fryer. Nancy had her eye on me the whole entire time I was eating.  
“My goodness, you were hungry,” she notes as she takes a sip of her milkshake.  
“I don't think I've had pizza that good before,” I confess to her, balling up the napkin in my hand.  
“Later on during the party,” Chris joins in, “we're gonna have lots of fresh fruit and veggies—and we're gonna have pizza, too.”  
“Alright! This party's just getting started—” I'm cut off by Chris knitting his eyebrows together and gesturing behind me. I turn around to the glass doors and Matt stepping through with a sheet of paper in his hand.  
“What you got there?” Nancy asks him, picking up a French fry.  
“A flyer from Sub Pop and from Bruce,” he answers, standing next to me and handing it over to Chris, “saying we're going to be the biggest thing come off the label.”  
“Why the long face, though?” I point out, picking up my milkshake for a sip myself.  
“We thought Shine was going to be that,” he continues, “I mean it's certified gold right now.”  
I'm stunned by that.  
“Shine?”  
“The debut EP by our friends—a big five piece called Mother Love Bone,” Nancy fills in before returning attention to Matt. “It's already certified gold? It came out like a couple of months ago.”  
“Yeah, surprised me, too. So I don't know what's going to happen here with Ultramega, or with Bleach for that matter.”  
“Would you like something to eat, man?” Chris offers him. “I can hit up the counter real quick and get you something.”  
“Oh, no, thank you, I'm not hungry.” Matt then directs his attention to me. “I did speak with Dominique a little while ago after she got off from work—”  
Butterflies rise up in my full stomach at the sound of that.  
“What'd... she say?”  
“Just that,” he clears his throat, “—she wants a word with you down at the library over by her school of all places here in Seattle.”  
“By her school?” I rest a hand on my stomach because butterflies and having just eaten doesn't mix very well.  
“Yeah. I can take you there real quick if you'd like.”  
“What about the party, though?”  
“The release party?” He gives his golden blond hair a toss back with a flick of his head. “It's not for another hour, at least.”  
“Matt's a San Diego boy, but he knows his way around the Emerald City, though,” Nancy assures me.  
“Yeah, I'll get you there and then the two of you over to the party in our neck of the woods.” He flips his hair back once more, and I figure it's best if I do pay Dominique another visit. And I get to see her school.  
I extend my hand for Chris to give me a shake for the time being; I also round the table to give Nancy a little hug.  
Before I step away from her, I feel her hands rest on the lower part of my back, almost onto my butt. I dare not change the expression on my face, but I do feel her.  
Matt leads me out to his car which, much like Nancy's car, is hydrogen powered and silent upon starting up. I'm in the passenger seat next to him with the thought of having slept with his girlfriend not even a couple of hours before firmly imprinted on my mind. My hope is that I don't say anything stupid to him that makes him ask any questions.  
“You're from New York, you said?” he asks me as we're rolling through the pristine damp freeway and the heart of downtown Seattle, where everything is plain and nondescript without all of the neon lights.  
“Upstate. This little town on Lake Ontario called Oswego, about an hour north of Syracuse.”  
“That just sounds... remote.”  
“It is. Going over to the City—New York City—as an all day affair. I don't know what it's like in California but I imagine it being similar.”  
“Yeah, it pretty much is, especially if you're going from LA up to like Redding, north of Sacramento—”  
“So how'd you meet Dominique?”  
“Kind of on accident.”  
“Kind of?”  
“Yeah. Okay, I met Nancy through Chris, like he was living with this guy—Andy, Andy Wood, he's the lead singer of that band Mother Love Bone we were talking about back at the restaurant.”  
“The band with the EP that's already gone gold,” I recall.  
“That's the one! So anyways, the two of them are great friends, and she had just started going out with Chris by the time I came into the picture. I was feeling alone one day and while I was looking for places to stay over by the University District where Kim lives, I ran into this little black girl on the street near the university itself. I mean, literally ran into her.”  
“Oh, shit.”  
“Yeah! She was on her way to school and I wasn't paying attention—I was looking at the apartment buildings or something like that, totally distracted—and I accidentally ran into her. I offered to help her and I'm apologizing to her, and we're standing upright and she goes, 'hey, you're the new guy.' And I was like 'what do you mean?' And she goes, 'you know Chris and Andy.' And I'm like 'how do you know Chris and Andy?' And she goes, 'Nancy's my best friend. I'm trying to help find her and Chris an apartment together.' And… one thing leads to another, and the next we know, we're going out with each other.”  
“She was helping them find a place?”  
“Yeah. And this was back when she had a full workload at school, too, like she was up to her neck in studying, being a journalism major and everything. She's a work horse like I am. I think that was the thing that made me think 'I can't really let this girl go.'”  
He gives his hair yet another flip as we take the next turn towards what I remember is the University District. We're rolling down the pavement for a little bit when we're met with this vast stretch of scraggly black trees and pines amongst a series of red brick buildings. This must be the place.  
In fact, he hangs a left down a bend in the road towards a small brick building, which I would believe is the library. I recognize her kinky black hair and her light brown skin seated one of the stairs leading up to the dark glass front doors.  
“There she is,” I point out.  
“My girl.” A big grin full of star's teeth crosses his face. We pull up to the curb next to the stairs; I climb out first, and I'm met with a lick of cold wind from the nearby Puget Sound. I almost lose my balance stumbling up the stairs to meet up with her. I clasp a hand to my stomach to steady myself. She recoils back against the steps with the book in her lap.  
“You alright?” she asks me.  
“Yeah, sorry, I've just got like… a really full belly right now. I think I ate too much.”  
She sniffles me a bit.  
“You've been to Dick's haven't you?”  
“I have, yeah.”  
“It's pretty good, isn't it?” She shows me a little grin.  
“Damn good. Anyways, you wanted to speak to me?”  
“Oh, yeah—” She closes her book before she stands to her feet in front of me. She blows a kiss over to Matt at the base of the stairs; I turn to see him catch it and press his hand to his lips. I return to her right as she's gesturing for me to follow her inside of the library.  
“I'll be waiting right here,” Matt calls out to us; I flash him a thumbs up before ducking through the dark glass front doors. All around us are bookshelves upholding so many books, all of them looking dusty, old, and untouched. There's a dual line of low wooden tables on the floor before us. The whole room smells of old paper and fresh scrubbed carpet. Dominique leads me into the left wing, which has whole lines of those dusty old books in question upon the shelves.  
They're so dusty in fact that I feel my nose beginning to tickle at the very sight of them.  
Dominique, meanwhile, runs her fingers along the spines of the books on the shelf level to her line of sight. And then she reaches one with “All Alone: Everything You Need to Know About Adoption” written on the spine in small black letters.  
“I remember seeing this book when I took sociology,” she explains in a whisper; she takes it off the shelf to better examine the gray front cover. “What I found about her, about Maya, the fact she's bounced around the Northeast and been from foster home to foster home, should explain why she is the way she is.”  
“So you found out about her zine?” I ask her, rubbing my nose.  
“After the Watershed? Yeah. I kind of knew about her already from that, from seeing it when I was in New York City, but it wasn't until I started digging and found some info about her. I was also given a free source about it from my friend Olivia.”  
“Olivia.”  
“Olivia.” She hesitates. “Wait. How'd you know about her zine?”  
“Olivia brought it down to Lars' house like the other day for me to see and everything. We even signed release forms to look at it and everything.”  
Dominique gazes off to the shelf in front of us, and that's when I let out a hefty sneeze.  
“Was it tucked in a copy of Tropic of Cancer?” she asks me once I regather myself.  
“Yes.”  
“She and I have been working on that case together. I was wondering what happened to that box.”  
I sneeze again, and this time it's followed up by some books falling onto the floor right behind us. I turn around to find Lars himself, and the fact he had ran right into the card catalog on the side of the room.  
“Speaking of Lars,” Dominique notes. He gathers his bearings with a hand clutched to his head and a stagger towards us. I shake my head at him.  
“Well, well, well, look who decided to show up to the party,” I say in kind of a snide tone.  
“What the hell happened with you?” he demands from me in a whisper. “I tried hitting up Kim and Matt, and neither of them could tell me the answer.”  
“I went back to New York for a few days. You know, to visit my parents and Brick. Then I came back here to the Emerald City to ring her up.”  
“That's what I came to tell you,” he replies, clutching at the lapels of his coat. “We have to go to New Orleans. It's a gold mine down there for Maya herself—I also have some unfinished business down there. Also—Maya followed me here.”  
I gape at him.  
“What do you mean, she followed you?”  
He points to the front door. I stride up to him for a look over at the front doors and Maya herself standing there, her black hair now a soft brown but her skin even more sickly pale than the last time I saw her.  
“How did you—get here?” I ask him as Dominique strolls on up from behind me.  
“Wormholes don't close all the way, remember? You might want to—speak to her. She's absolutely terrified of me, so I can't do anything. She asked for you, too.”  
I walk over to her in hopes to console her. Her face softens at the sight of me: the surgical scar on her forehead is just as prominent as ever.  
“Hi,” I greet her in a soft voice.  
“Joey,” she says in that English accent.  
“I've been trying to find out what happened to you.”  
“I know.”  
I frown at that; I turn back around to see Lars and Dominique, both of them huddled together as if they're hiding from a ravenous beast.  
“Wait. What do you mean, you know?”  
“You don't go to great lengths like what you've been doing for nothing,” she explains, her expression blank. “And I want to thank you for it. But I also want you to stop.”  
“Why? What happened to you is inexcusable. I want you to—heal.”  
“Yes, but I don't want you to uncover these things about me. I don't want you to witness the pain I have experienced.”  
“I don't understand.”  
“And I don't want you to understand, either.” The whole time her expression has never changed.  
“But, why, though?”  
“Well, first of all, there's just a lot to my story other than—how you found me and when you found me. And second, it's for your protection that you leave it a secret.”  
“I'm sure whoever did this to you will be strung up by their balls for doing what they did to you. Why keep it a secret?”  
She shifts her weight, but her expression never changes from that blank nonchalant look.  
“Look,” I begin, “when I was asked to leave Anthrax, I haven't been keeping it a secret. If anything, it's helped me overcome the fact that I was pretty much kicked in the balls after that day. Yeah, I'm still pissed about it, but at least I'm not making it a secret. And to be honest, I don't want you to stay quiet about what happened to you.”  
I pause for a minute and then an idea crosses my mind. “I'm gonna go talk to Matt for a second, alright?”  
“Joey—don't leave me, please,” she begs me, pressing her hands to my chest. “Don't, don't—please.”  
“I'm just going right outside here,” I assure her. “And Lars isn't gonna hurt you, I promise.”  
“Please don't—please don't—please—” She gasps, which is then followed by a wince in pain. She rubs her fingers onto her temples.  
“What's wrong?”  
She snaps her eyes shut as she massages her temples. She bows her head right in front of me.  
“God—” she grunts out. I turn back around to Lars and Dominique, both of whom are beginning to skirt around from behind me towards the front door. I return to her as she's falling onto the hard floor with her hands clasped to either side of her head.  
“Maya, what's wrong?” I demand, trying to keep my voice down given it's a library.  
“I have a horrible headache—oh God, do I have a headache!” she raises her voice instead.  
“Shhh!” a person across the room hisses at us. I retract at the sound. Meanwhile, Dominique ducks outside. I return to Maya as she's laying on the floor on her side with her hands on the sides of her head. Lars, who's got his hand on the door handle, watches with me in concern. I swallow as she's coiling further and further into herself.  
“Maya?” I whisper to her, totally clueless to what's happening.  
“I have the—the worst headache—” The tone of her voice changes: it's going from that gentle light voice tinged with an English accent to something deep and warped, like that from a machine. I back away from her, and towards Lars. Her little body is expanding and tearing apart into tatters, almost like what I saw on the hockey rink that night. The inside of her coat is lined with neon blue, like the lights making up downtown Seattle. Her hair flies back into those same wispy tatters like with the four ghosts who live with me and with the Man in Black. So, she's a ghost, too?  
“—the—the worst headache—help—help me—” The scar on her forehead bursts open to reveal a third eye, one that's bright blue and with a narrow black pupil, like that of a reptile. Her fingers turn into claws and she's growing and elongating into a serpentine monster.  
“HOLY SHIT, DUDE!” Lars shrieks. The person across the room ducks behind the table and we're standing there before the front doors. I'm at a loss for words. I turn back around to see Dominique and Matt runing back to their car parked at the curb. I watch them both duck into the front seat and speed away from there. Lars and I are left behind to face on Maya as she's transforming into this... thing, right before the library doors. A growl emerges out of her expanding mouth; neon scales coat her new body. A cross between a dragon, a ghost, and a machine.  
“What do we do!” I exclaim to him as her claws begin to shine and rust at the same time as if they're made of old metal. Lars pats down his chest and his pockets before turning to me.  
“You have it!” he declares, pointing at me as Maya lifts herself up from the floor, this serpentine robotic thing that looks like it's disappearing into thin air. She huffs like she's full of hot steam.  
“I have what?”  
“The arrowhead! You have it!” My hands shaking like crazy, I reach down inside of my shirt for the arrowhead pendant in question. I almost drop it onto my chest because of the shaking of my hands. But, by some miracle, I managed to take it off of my neck to make a large X shape in mid air.  
“Into the wormhole, Joey!” Lars screeches as I watch Maya's head further take the lengthy shape of that of a dragon. “Quickly! Quickly!”


	28. (at lars' place)

I fall right onto my shoulders on something soft, but at the same time, I can't believe I don't break my neck somersaulting forward. I'm laying face down on some kind of plush carpet that smells of lemons and fresh raspberries. I lift my head to find myself in a small brightly lit bedroom with a shaggy bright red carpet and a twin size bed with a scarlet red bedspread. There's red and white pinstriped wallpaper upon the walls that makes me think of peppermint candy. I catch the sound of rain pattering on the roof overhead.  
“Lars?” I grunt out, my neck throbbing with a bit of pain from landing there. I set my hands on the carpet on either side of me and push myself up. My head spins a bit as I'm standing on my knees. I then take a glimpse over at the top of the bed and I spot Lars laying there flat on his back with his legs spread wide open.  
“Lars?” I groan as I curve my back away from the foot of the bed. “Are you alright, man?”  
“Yeah—” he breathes out. He hoists himself up on his elbows to better look at me.  
“I got spun around in circles,” he recalls, blinking several times, probably the dizzy feeling inside of him.  
“I landed right on my neck,” I tell him, stretching my arms over my head and feeling the hem of my shirt rise up with me—something about that coupled with the feeling of having a lot of food inside of me. I glance about the room, at the spindly nightstand next to him and the heavy dark red dresser up against the wall right next to me. In front of me is a tiny kitchenette with a small table and a wine cellar in between the two main cabinets and over the sink; on the right of me stands a door leading to what I'd think is the bathroom. I turn around to see the small square window and the red and white plaid drapes covering them, hiding them away from the gray blue sky outside.  
“Where are we?” I ask him, my voice breaking.  
“New Orleans.” He swallows as he runs his fingers through the bit of hair on the side of his head. “The French Quarter, to be specific. This is my little apartment that my wife doesn't know about. I usually come here when the going gets rough and I feel like no one will listen. I made the mistake of coming here last summer during a category—I think three, hurricane, but at the same time, I loved the city, though. I thought it was rather lovely and it proves to be quite the quiet place when I'm in need of it. I try to come here when there's news of a hurricane or at least a tropical storm coming in.”  
“The storms keep you here,” I follow along, resting my forearms atop my head. “Like, they ground you.”  
“Right! The house in Portland? That's our place. This little room here? My place. Lars' place. Downstairs is a restaurant and a bar so when I come here alone, I can just sleep here and hang out down there.”  
He sits upright so as to better swing his legs over the edge of the bed: his shirt underneath his coat has ridden up his body a little bit, but I don't think he cares one way or the other. I set my arms down and climb up to my feet myself. I make my way over to the window to take a look for myself. Rain drops coat the pane on the outside, while the sky is a solid bluish gray and all the buildings out there are of bright colors. Where Seattle had the plain blocks of black and gray only to be made up with the neon lights, New Orleans has all the colors of the rainbow and then some accompanied with twinkling golden lights shining onto the wet street down below. I catch a glimpse of a draw bridge beyond the line of bars and flats across the street from us, lighting up with those exact same golden lights; beyond that is a sliver of dark gray.  
“There's indeed a hurricane coming in in the next couple of days,” Lars notes. “A category one or two, I believe.”  
“So I better make myself comfy,” I conclude, sighing through my nose. Meanwhile, I can't get the image of what happened in the library out of my mind. Maya transformed into a monster and now everything I have known about her has gone completely sideways. My only hope is the wormhole closed so she can't follow us here to the safe place.  
“Think I should call my parents?” I suggest to him, letting go of the curtain and turning to find him taking a wine bottle out of the cellar. “You know, like tell them where I am?”  
“Do your parents know about wormholes?” he asks, peering over his shoulder to show his raised eyebrows at me: he's setting the bottle on the counter top in front of him.  
“No. Not that I know of.”  
“I don't believe it is something they would understand, to be honest. Now, if it's something like—calling them to say that you're in New Orleans with a friend, that might be a little more believable, but—do they know about your friend at all?”  
“No.”  
“Tell them when the storm passes and you can crawl back to Oswego.”  
“Why should I wait 'til the storm passes?”  
He pauses, pursing his lips at me. “Well, first of all, you just got here, man. And I don't want you to return home having experienced what you just experienced to not have time to reflect over.”  
“Yeah, Maya turned into a... a monster.”  
He turns the bottle around so I can read the label beholding the word “sarsaparilla”. Well, that's a relief. “She had left your other friends' house through a wormhole that hadn't closed all the way, and I guess she was looking for you to help her protect her from—something. It was at night so my guess is she had a night terror. But she ran into me, and I offered to help her, but she's scared of me. She kept calling for you.”  
“Calling for me. Like... calling my name?”  
“Yeah, like a girl looking for her lost dog. I followed her towards another wormhole and we wound up near the university. I saw Matt right behind me, and she was right behind him. He told me you were in there with Dominique and so I ran in to fetch you.”  
“She kept calling for me, though,” I point out, stepping closer into the kitchenette.  
“Yeah. It was—a little disturbing, to be honest. Because I told her 'I'll take you to Joey, I promise', and she went, 'no! You're lying! You're lying just like how Papa lied to me!' and she ran off into the wormhole.”  
“Papa,” I repeat.  
“Papa. And it took me aback, like what? Maya, I know you. What're you talking about?”  
I think about Dominique's research, and the fact Maya has gone through so many foster homes in her life. Makes me wonder about her own parents now.  
“Anyways, hang tight—” he tells me, raising a finger. “I need to borrow the good corkscrew from the young lady downstairs.”  
He leaves the bottle there on the counter and ducks out of the front door into the dim corridor outside there. I'm left alone in the room with the sound of the rain outside continuing to patter away on the rooftop. The whole apartment is spotless, so clean that I could probably eat something off of the floor if Lars willed it. But I also spot something black and yellow on the edge of the faucet. I put my finger on it to get it off and it doesn't smell of anything, but the texture reminds me of slime mixed with mud.  
“Ewww—yech—”  
I turn the dial and no water flows out of the faucet. I don't know what this goop is, but it's gross and it's spreading over my fingers as if it has a mind of its own.  
“I have to wash my hands,” I say aloud, running out the door into the hallway. “I have to wash my hands!”  
Dim amber light washes over the heavy dark wood upon the floor. There are three other doors next to Lars' place, but I don't know if anyone's home.  
“Anyone got a faucet?” I call out into the hallway. The one on the far end swings open and an older lady with a short bob of white hair and leathery looking skin emerges from bit of white light.  
“What's th' matter, hon?” she says to me in a thick Southern accent.  
“I've got this sticky sludgy stuff on my hand and it won't come off. I have no water.”  
I show her my hand and the sight of the stuff covering three of my fingers.  
“Oh, dear—c'mon on in, hon—”  
She guides me inside where I'm met with a stark room and the smell of cleaner. Her body is frail, more frail than Maya's, but she's taking me into the small kitchen. She leans me over the sink with my hand right underneath the narrow tarnished faucet. Her hands shaking, she slips on a pair of yellow rubber dishwashing gloves before taking my hand and sticking it under the faucet.  
“This is gonna be real hot, alright?” she advises me, clasping onto my wrist.  
“Yeah—” Using her other hand, she turns on the hot water. I brace myself and snap my eyes shut because I know it's going to be so painful.  
But it starts out cold, and then warms it way up so I'm acquainted with it. And then it begins to feel really hot, almost to where it's burning.  
I clutch my teeth together and peek through one eye at the sight of the slime falling right off of my skin. I watch it flow away with the water down the drain.  
“Okay—” she mutters, turning on the cold water. I breathe through my lips as the feel of it soothes me so much.  
Once it's obvious the stuff on my hand is now gone, she switches off the water and reaches next to her for a dish towel. Ever so gently, she dabbles my hands dry.  
She gazes into my face with grave dark eyes, the whites of which are as yellow as butter. I stand upright to take a closer look at her face and the gaps in the hair all around the crown of her head.  
“Are you alright?” she asks me; I look even closer to see a few gaps in her teeth.  
“Yeah… what even was that?”  
“Banana slug. Been rightly seein' 'em a lot lately, ever since th' machines came 'n' went outta here back in th' springtime. They're almost moo-tated 'cause of 'em.”  
“Because of—heavy machinery.”  
“Real advanced, the real kinda thing ye'd see in th' future at some point er another. Slugs 'er gettin' crazy, climbin' on everythin' and suckin' things dry, almost like parasites.”  
“My God.”  
“Yeah. I'd be more worried 'bout a young'un like yerself ta be honest. Yer gon' be seein' them all the time after th' fall of them more pieces of machines.”  
“Joey?” Lars' voice floats in from down the hall.  
“—I'll getcha some aloe vera, if ye'd like,” she continues. “Always helps me, 'specially now.”  
“Uh, yeah. Yes, please.”  
“Joey?” he calls out again, and this time he pokes his head in from the corridor. “What're you—”  
The lady catches sight of him and gasps.  
“Oh—Lars, right?” she greets him, still holding onto my wrist. “I didn't think I'd see ya again.”  
“Oh. Hello, Ellen. I—” He swallows as he straightens himself out there in the doorway and with a corkscrew in his hand. “—I didn't think you'd still be alive.”  
“Oh, come on, man,” I plead to him.  
“Joey, this is—Ellen. I met her when I came here last year. Very sick then.”  
“An' even sicker now.” She turns to me and lets go of my wrist. “I'll get you that aloe.” She strips off the gloves once Lars enters the apartment with a serious expression on his face.  
“Man, I am just learning something new about you every day it seems,” I remark, still clutching my hand.  
“I've bounced around a lot in the past few years,” he confesses, pressing his free hand to his hip. “Metallica has really come a long, long way, my friend.” He frowns at the sight of the red skin on my hand. “What happened to you?”  
“Black mud sludge shit from a banana slug. I saw a bit of it on your faucet and I went to wipe it off with my finger, it was like—coming over my hand like some mutant slime.”  
“Holy shit. Oh, yeah, that's right. They turned off the water at my place.”  
“Why's that?”  
“Forgot to pay the bill. But banana slugs, though?”  
“They're changin' in th' aftermath of machines havin' been here,” Ellen explains as she returns to the room with a bottle of green aloe gel. Lars bows his head and knits his eyebrows together.  
“Machines, like—hyper advanced ones?”  
“Yeah. Lotsa neon an' bright lights. A lotta th' marine life 'round Nawlins is goin' that way, too. It's almost impossible ta fish now without findin' a creature with extra heads, er limbs, er th' like. Slugs 'n' snails have taken it th' worst, 'cause they're th' smallest.”  
Lars and I gape at each other, and I know he's thinking what I'm thinking. She spreads a little blotch of the cool aloe gel all around my fingers and the pads of my hand, but does nothing more than that.  
“You finish it up, hon—I need ta lie down.”  
I rub my hands together as she trudges into the next room and onto the sterile looking couch that's in there. Lars turns around to me with an alarmed look on his face.  
“Marine life is mutating in the wake of the neon lights and all the crisp perfection,” he notes in a low voice.  
“That's not gonna be good for Seattle,” I point out, interlocking my fingers.  
“That's not going to be good for anybody.”


	29. (sunrise in the french quarter)

October 22, 1988. New Orleans, Louisiana.  
“So—whadya say yer name was again, son?”  
“Didn’t. It’s Joey.”  
It’s around dinner time and I’m still full from my lunch back in Seattle. But Lars had offered to bring Ellen and me downstairs to the bar he hangs out at, even after kicking back a glass of sarsaparilla. He also offered the two of us dinner. I am going to be here a couple of days, I might as well take up his offer.  
We had helped Ellen down the creaky wooden stairs in the narrow corridor to the bottom level, where we were met with a bunch of heavy dark tables strewn about the floor. To the right of us, meanwhile, stood a rather good sized stage with a microphone stand.  
I keep my eye on the stage as she and I took our seats in a tiny nook at the end of the bar.  
At this point, she follows my gaze to the stage and the tall thin microphone stand there right in the center of it all.  
“Ya like singin’, son?” The sound of her calling me “son” makes me think of Mr. Lang back home.  
“I’m a singer by trade. I taught myself how to do it singing along to The Beatles, and also Journey, Rush, Boston, and Cheap Trick.”  
“Oh, bless you kids an’ yer rockin’ souls. Yew ‘n’ my daughter both—I shoulda known from yer long luxury of hair that yer of the rockin’ type. I don’t really pay attention anymore on accounta my memory ain’t so good no more.”  
She cranes her neck back to the bar next to us.  
“Where’da Mr. Lars go?”  
“Right here, my dear!” He emerges from the far side of the bar, from behind a curtain, and gives his hair a toss as he strides on back to us.  
“The lovely Delphine Dufresne is not in yet,” he announces, “so it will be a little while before we eat, drink, and be merry.”  
“She can take her time, to be honest,” I confess with a rub of my stomach. Ellen gasps at me.  
“Gosh darnit, son, you are thin!”  
“Tell me about it,” I tease back to her.  
“Rub it in, why don’t you,” Lars says, snide. He walks on past us back to the stairwell, but she’s more focused on me.  
“I can’t rightly remember th’ last time I’da seen a young man so thin,” she remarks, clearing her throat. “I hope ya eat well.”  
“I do, as a matter of fact,” I point out, pushing back the lapels of my jacket to show her more of me as well as the ring on my pinky finger. She examines my thighs and my hips first, followed by my stomach and my chest. She shakes her head at me.  
“You’re so skinny, and I’m dying to get some meat on your bones, but god—you seriously gotta beautiful body there, kiddo. I don’t wanna see yew lose it like’n what’s been happening t’me lately.” She shivers under her shawl. I can only piece it together: missing hair and teeth, very weak but by some miracle saved me from the banana slug slime and knew what to do upon sight of it.  
“I’m a little afraid to ask,” I confess, swallowing. She chews on her lip and sighs through her nose.  
“I have cancer on both of my ovaries. It’s spread ta other parts o’ my body, too.”  
“Oh my God.”  
“And my liver’s startin’ ta go out on me. Th’ doctors gave me six months to live last year, but here I am now.”  
“Last year?”  
“Yeah. Th’ year before, I lost my family, my daughter for th’ most part. Husband took ‘er out t’California without me. It’s been a—a whadya-ma-call-it, a downward spiral since then.”  
I think about my own dabbling with booze when I was with Anthrax.  
“Have you tried stopping?”  
“All th’ time, hon. All th’ time. But I think about ‘er ‘n’ I can’t help but sink back into th’ bottom of a bottle. Th’ divorce left me in shambles. I figure, what’s the use? No’un’s actually gonna remember me or find me attractive again. All I got is a bit o’ morphine ‘n’ watchin’ th’ city by th’ sea crumble in a wake o’ robots ‘n’ such. A hurricane couldn’t ta even kill me. I ain’t twenty five anymore.”  
“You know I’m—I just turned twenty eight and I feel the exact same way. Like I won’t be seen as sexy enough, or good enough.”  
The corners of her mouth crinkle up into a smile and she rests a hand on top of my thigh.  
“Oh, Joey, yer as much of a sweetheart as you are handsome. But yew got yer whole life right there right in front of ya. Have ya had any girls make advances onto ya?”  
“A few, but nothing serious. I’m also not really looking for anything.”  
“Well, now there’s yer problem. If ya ain’t lookin’, ya ain’t embracin’.”  
I wonder what she means by that. Embracing what? But then again, I’m just trying to have a good time for a good time, that is when I’m not focused on what happened to Maya. She shivers again, this time a much more violent shaking.  
“Ya sure ya ain’t hungry?”  
“Yeah. I had a pretty big lunch not too long ago.”  
“I’m sure that little itty bitty belly o’ yers can hold even more food than ya think. Yer in th’ Big Easy, darlin’. We’ll put ya ta work ‘n’ give ya what’cha came for.”  
She clears her throat as Lars returns to the room accompanied with a svelte black woman with long thick dreadlocks all around her head. As she comes into the light, I catch a view of the big heavy jewelry around her neck, specifically, the big green jade medallion upon her chest. She’s wrapped in a heavy black coat and has on these heavy black leather boots, kind of like the ones I have back home.  
“The dashing Delphine Dufresne,” Lars introduces us; he turns to me. “This is Joey from upstate New York. He’s the guy I was telling you about just a little bit ago, the one who found Maya.”  
She holds out both hands for me to take: in the dim light, I can make out lines of stars on her fingers. Probably henna tattoos. I lay my hands in the palms of hers, and then she lifts mine to her lips.  
“All of the best treatment for the best people,” she declares in that accent I can only pinpoint to as Creole. She lets go of me and then turns to the bar next to us. She gestures for me to follow her.  
“Come. Have a seat.” I slither around the edge of the bar to one of the spindly stools there, right next to Lars. I lean over the top of the bar with my hands folded: I watch her take out a clean bulbous glass, as clear as a bell, followed by a bottle of passion fruit. Probably making me a hurricane.  
“Oh, no. I don’t drink anymore.”  
“Oh, come on,” she insists, taking out a bottle of lemon juice. “This is on me. Here--I know how to make a virgin hurricane.”  
“Okay, I’ll take that.”  
She chuckles at that as I watch her pour in the passion fruit and the lemon, followed by cherry and orange juice into a strainer with some ice. Ellen coughs, a rough sounding guttural cough, and shifts her weight so she’s out of my line of sight. She could die right there, for all I know.  
“So how do you know Maya?” I ask her.  
“When she lived here in New Orleans, she and I attended school together. We were in the same class, and we clicked because we were both outcasts--my father is Louisiana Creole and my mother is Jamaican. She was this little white English girl with Norwegian parents, but she lived with some people from Boston.”  
“From Boston? What were they doing here?”  
“No idea. But when she and I came together--hang on--” She picks up the metal cup and sticks on a glass on the top end in order shake it up. I watch her shake the whole thing before straining it into the glass for me, this lush bright scarlet liquid of a drink with some ice. She then drops a couple of cherries into it and an orange slice on the edge, followed by a black straw.  
“--when she and I came together, we were inseparable. It got us into trouble, though.” She hands me the glass on a white paper napkin.  
“They would dive into garbage cans and into people’s backyards,” Lars fills in, “according to Delphine here, they had nothing better to do at home.”  
“My parents worked long hard hours and Maya never really spoke about her home life too much. So we met a young man who taught us to do those things.”  
I take a sip of the hurricane threw the straw and it’s like a punch in the face from the sheer amount of citrus she put in the glass. But it’s delicious and incredibly refreshing, even if it’s late October.  
“Holy fuck, that’s good,” I remark.  
“She is the queen of hurricanes,” Lars points out before returning to her.  
“Mint Julep, right?” she asks him.  
“Yes, my dear.”  
“You ladies met a guy who helped you do stuff like that?” I recall, taking another sip.  
“I don’t remember his name, but he was this blond man. Tall and thin, and he sounded as though he was from your neck of the woods.”  
“From New York?” I raise my eyebrows at that.  
“From the City. Wait. Are you from the City?”  
“Upstate. Like--Syracuse area. I’m a hick.” Ellen lets out another hacking cough and I can’t help but wince at the sound of it.  
‘Ha! I have met a number of hicks while working here--you are far from it.” I catch a whiff of mint leaf behind the bar. “Anyways, yes, he was from--Staten Island, I believe. The real gritty, downtrodden part of town. And like with her, with Maya, I just clicked with him.”  
“Whatever happened to him?” Lars pipes up.  
“No idea. He just--disappeared one day. Maya and I thought he went back up north, but we have no idea. We continued to ‘dig for buried treasure’ as we called it, until I got arrested.”  
“You got arrested?” I gape at her and the straw falls out of my mouth.  
“I got arrested, but she got away. That was the last time I saw her, too. I have thought about her constantly since then, like whatever happened to her.” She stirs the creamy white drink in her hand before placing the mint leaf on top of it and handing it to Lars.  
Meanwhile, I’m glad I was already feeling full because this is a really sweet drink. Not too sweet, but enough to make me wish for a bit of bread or something. Ellen coughs again, and she follows it up with a clearing of her throat.  
“Son--” she calls to me. I turn my attention to her as she’s standing to her feet. She clasps onto the edge of the bar to steady her balance, and I slide out from the top of the stool to catch her. I put my arm around her and she glances up at me with a pained smile.  
“I need my medicine,” she confesses in a broken voice.  
“And you need help, too. Okay--” I turn to Lars and Delphine at the other side of the bar. “I’ll be right back.”  
I guide her to the stairwell and, careful not to let her fall ass over teakettle on the steps, I walk with her back to her place. We reach the landing and her apartment, and she shows me another pained smile.  
“Such a sweet young’un of a man,” she croaks. I guide her to the front door but she keeps walking into the room to my left. I peer in through the doorway to see where she went, and then she returns cradling a big black peacoat in her arms.  
“Before I go, I want yew ta have this.” She hands me the coat and I unfurl it right in front of me. The fabric has been worn down to the bare threads, and each of the silver buttons with the fleur-de-lis flowers imprinted on them are tarnished beyond belief but I can tell it’s still got plenty of life left in it.  
“This was my husband’s coat. I dunno why he didn’t took it with ‘em outta California but I reckon it’s yer size, though.”  
“Thank you,” I tell her. “Thank you very much.” I check the front pockets: the one on the right has a pair of black leather evening gloves. These, meanwhile, are pristine, as if they had never been used at all.  
“Pair of gloves in here, too.”  
“Keep those, too.” I fold up the coat and lay it over my forearm, and that’s when she steps in closer to me. “I could die tomorrah mornin’, Joey, when the hurricane’s a-comin’. I wanna leave this earth with nuthin.”  
Her bony hands rest upon my shoulders. I gaze into those tired yellowed eyes. This poor woman is on her last legs. I might be the last person she ever sees.  
“Twenty-eight. Got yer whole life ahead o’ ya. Don’ worry ‘bout me.”  
I’m feeling warm again, and it’s from the fact she’s right here in front of me. The whole time I’m thinking she’s going to hug me but she never does. Instead she lets me go, and I leave the apartment and the sight of her.  
I go back to the bar but I don’t remember anything else. It’s all a haze. It might be the hurricane, it might be the fact I was just speaking to a woman who’s about to die, or it might just be the fact that I’m learning even more about Maya and it’s difficult to digest. In fact, I don’t even hear the rest of it.  
What I do know is I’m waking up on Lars’ bedspread on my left side. My mouth is dry and my head hurts. I roll over onto my back to feel Lars himself laying on his back and snoring very loudly. I rub my eyes. That hurricane must have had a little booze in it. God. God dammit.  
I peer out the window, through the parted drapes and the red rays of sunlight shining over the colorful rooftops outside.  
“What the fuck--what happened?” I mutter aloud: the back of my throat is parched and dry and tastes nasty. I nudge Lars’ leg but he doesn’t stir.  
“Hey--” I call to him. “--’ey.” But he doesn’t wake up. I roll my eyes and careful not to hurt myself, I lift myself into an upright position. I’ve got a splitting pain down the front of my head. My head hurts. My head really hurts.  
My knees quiver as I stand to my feet. Something’s itching at my throat. I look down to find my shirt’s on backwards. I’m barefoot, too.  
“Where are my shoes?” I ask aloud. I spot the black coat Ellen had given me laying atop of Lars’ dresser. And then I remember her. Careful not to make my head ache even more, I step out of the apartment only to be met by the smell of pancakes and coffee floating up from downstairs. The wooden floor is cold on the soles of my feet as I’m ambling down towards her apartment door. I knock on the door panel.  
“Ellen?”  
Silence. I knock again.  
“Ellen?”  
Nothing. She could’ve died in her sleep for all I know. I fetch up a sigh and bow my head. But the smell of coffee is beckoning me. I don’t have much other choice than to find my shoes and straighten myself up and face the world.  
There is also that stage downstairs. I might as well take advantage of it. The party starts with Mr. Joe.


	30. (bud e luv bomb and satan's lounge band)

October 23, 1988. New Orleans, Louisiana.  
I haven't been able to find my shoes anywhere in Lars' place. Either I lost them in the restaurant or something else happened to them. Nevertheless, I don't really want to walk about the wet ground of the French Quarter barefoot. I found my ring in my jeans pocket, but I cannot for the life of me remember where I left my shoes. But nowhere in Lars' apartment can I find any shoes or boots or anything that seems to fit me. And the fact he hasn't woken up yet, at eight thirty, tells me I should probably bypass him and search for some shoes myself.  
Meanwhile, I still haven't heard a peep from Ellen's apartment. I'm pretty sure I am the last person she saw given I'm met with silence each time I walk over there to knock on her door. I finally gave up about a half an hour ago when I decided it's better if I just take care of myself and fetch something to eat downstairs. I fix my shirt and head on downstairs with the coat over my body to see if it actually does fit me. Musty and scratchy, but does fit me well especially at my hips. I put on the gloves, which fit as though they were made for my hands. I lift my hair out from underneath the collar before wheeling around and heading out of the apartment. Lars is still sound asleep by the time I leave the apartment and head out to the hallway. The floor boards creak under my bare feet as I amble down to Ellen's door again.  
Gently, I knock on the panel.  
“Ellen? Are you there?”  
I'm still met with silence.  
“Ellen, it's Joey.” I feel odd saying this already. “I know you're probably gone now, like you went in your sleep but—” I don't know if it's the thirst of having drank a lot the night before or if it's the fact I was the last person for her to see me, but my throat is already closing up.  
“—I want to tell you thank you. You know for... sharing your final moments with me and your last bit of wisdom. I'll admit I was a little unsure at first but—I don't know what I'm saying. You were a ghastly sick old lady taking her final steps and I want to thank you for letting me take them with you. But—I have to go now. I hope you and I can meet again one day.”  
I sigh through my nose and feel the weight of the silence upon me. I close my eyes as I keep my hand on the door panel. I slide my hand down to the doorknob to feel it turn a bit. The door swings open and I'm met with a rush of cool air that smells clean once again. She's in there, I can sense it. It's like how I can sense Mrs. Snow or Vera in the same room with me. There's the corpse of an old lady in there but I don't really want to see it.  
I close the door again out of respect for her. At least I can do one thing right for once in this past week.  
I run my fingers through my hair before heading down the stairs to the bar and the restaurant, which is bustling with patrons and waitresses docked in black button up blouses and black and red skirts. I take a seat at the sole empty table near the stage, where the band of the day is setting up their amps and their equipment. A waitress strolls on over to me and asks me if I can have anything to drink.  
“Cup of coffee please—no cream—and a blueberry muffin.”  
She nods at me before stepping away. I can only hope I've got enough in my pockets to cover for it; I fold my arms over the top of the table and lean over so as to hide my face. I glance over my shoulder at the stage behind me and the girl in a lush crimson long dress that looks as though it's made entirely of velvet is setting up the microphone rack right down by her feet. I watch her stand up before the microphone itself and blow into it.  
I adjust myself in the seat of the chair so my elbow rests on the top of the back and I'm facing her straight on.  
She opens her lips and starts to sing “Blackbird” by the Beatles.  
I learned to sing by covering the Beatles.  
I can't help it: I do it along with her, but without my own microphone.  
She lifts her gaze to me and our eyes lock together for a moment but it's long enough to coax a smile from her. I flash her wink and she wraps her fingers around the stand, to which I see a wedding ring on her third finger.  
FUCK.  
I sigh through my nose and that's when the waitress returns to me. I shift back around in my chair at the sight of a white mug of fresh black coffee and a big fresh blueberry muffin that I swear is larger than my fist. I take a sip of the coffee and it caresses my poor parched mouth with its warmth. I pick at my muffin, and I usually like my blueberry ones, especially the ones straight out of the oven. I think it just might be the hangover talking, though, so I keep drinking the coffee to the very bottom of the mug.  
Little better. My headache is going away, but my appetite is still a ways off, though.  
I pick at the muffin even more and once I reach the stump, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn my head to find the girl who was up on stage standing next to me but with a jacket over her dress.  
“'Scuse me—er, I hate to do this to you,” she speaks with a little lighter of an accent compared to Ellen's, “but I saw you singin' earlier, and I was just wonderin' if it wouldn't be too much trouble for me to ask you if could you fill in for me, please? I have an emergency at home that I need to tend to, but I don't want my band to be without a singer again.”  
“Um—sure.” The butterflies rise up inside of my stomach because this is a total unknown to me.  
“We're just a cover band and we're only gonna do a couple of songs before we head on home, anyways. We're just the openin' band for the main act in a little while.”  
“Yeah, I'd be honored to—it's no bother. Just lemme finish my muffin—”  
She returns to the band, all of whom are already taking their places up on the stage. I wasn't hungry before but I wolf down the remainder of the muffin stump before striding over to them. I wish I hadn't already drank down the coffee because the whole thing coats my mouth for a moment. I recall what Ellen had told me the night before given this is the Big Easy and that someone will have work for you. I adjust the lapels of my coat and climb up the trio of steps leading up onto the stage.  
There's a black girl with dreadlocks behind the small drum kit, a sandy haired boy holding an oversized blue bass guitar with five strings, and two boys with pompadours atop their heads holding twin red guitars. They're all wearing white shirts and black and white leggings held up with black suspenders.  
Like a lounge version of Anthrax.  
“Hey, guys, I'm Joey,” I introduce to them. “Your singer just told me she had to run on home real quick and so I took up to the challenge.”  
“No challenge here, man,” the bass player assures me, “we're just gonna play two songs and then we're heading out.”  
“The first song we're doing is 'Hush' by Deep Purple,” the drummer calls out to me. “Do you know that one?”  
“Hell yeah! Like, by heart!”  
“I like this guy already,” the guitarist on the right chuckles, taking out a comb from his trouser pocket for a quick swipe over his head, “let's get on it.”  
I pull the thread bare coat over me before ambling over the stage to the microphone stand. I curl my fingers back to better break into the black leather gloves. All eyes are on me and the fact I'm the one person up here dressed in black with disheveled hair, bare feet, and dark Indian skin. I gaze on at the crowd before us. I hope Lars will hear me belt it out as the four of them launch into their heavy, rough sound right behind me. It's like being with Anthrax again as I grip onto the microphone stand with my left hand.  
I think about Maya, who's back in Seattle; about Ellen, who's upstairs; Brick, who's in the hospital; the fact I got drunk last night and lied to my parents; and most of all, I think about my past with Anthrax. It's all coming down on me like a pouring, torrential rain from the incoming hurricane outside.  
But all I can do is sing out, and sing loud.  
Since I woke up hungover, and I had just eaten a muffin, I haven't been able to warm up but I go forth with it anyways. My voice comes out broken and garbled, but loud and still plenty powerful from my last performance on State of Euphoria, even against the full sounding bass and the loud guitars. Their instruments are rough and filthy in sound, as though they hadn't spent a lot of money on buying them, but they're good musicians, though. They're a good heavy weight against my voice.  
I'm loud, even with the breaks in my voice and my stomach tightening up. Ellen's firmly on my mind as I'm nearing the end of the first verse.  
I feel a piece of my hair falling into my face, but I don't care. If anything, it just adds to it.  
Ellen died alone and I'm the one soul grieving her at the moment.  
My voice breaks even more when I hit the chorus and I throw myself into it even more. The four of them join in with me on their microphones.  
I think back to when Anthrax and I did a song at the end of our album from last year, Among the Living, called “Bud E Luv Bomb and Satan's Lounge Band”, where I was Bud E Luv Bomb, the smarmy lounge singer blitzed off his ass on booze and cocaine and God knows what else. We did it as kind of a joke, but I had become that very entity.  
I am Bud E Luv Bomb, and this is Satan's Lounge Band right behind me.  
I run my fingers through my hair so everyone can better see my face. This is where I open my eyes to catch a view of the audience. Everyone is gazing on at me in awe.  
I wonder how many of the people in here are aware that I was once the lead singer for a thrash metal band and am now caught up in a hurricane of strange events.  
Probably not many, because the couple right in front of me lean together to say something. After the guitar solo, I hear the man on the right say, “he's got a lot of soul”, and the woman next to him follows up with “yeah, he's an amazing singer. Lot of melancholy.”  
Melancholy, yes, especially at the moment. Amazing? Meh. I'm not sure about that.


	31. (kiss me deadly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “But I know what I like  
I know I like dancing with you  
And I know what you like  
I know you like dancing with me.”  
-”Kiss Me Deadly”, Lita Ford

October 23, 1988. New Orleans, Louisiana.  
After the little sorta gig, I go back upstairs to the apartment to check to see if Lars is up yet. I open the door to find him laying face down in his bed with his face buried in his pillow.  
Not even the hefty bass guitar downstairs or the sound of my voice was able to knock him awake.  
I'm still barefoot: I peer down at the bare skin on my feet and frown as I wiggle my toes.  
Meanwhile, the scratchy interior of this coat is really starting to irritate me. I peel it off and toss it onto the foot of the bed right before the soles of his feet. I strip off the gloves and lay them on top of the dresser, and give my hands a shake to let them breathe.  
Take a walk, I suppose.  
I'm thinking something happened to my shoes once I return to the top of the stairwell; like someone took them while I was unconscious last night. Or maybe I did something with them because my memory is dark pertaining to what happened after I left Ellen's apartment and returned to the bar to meet up with Lars and Delphine again. I descend the stairs once again and pass the doorway to the bar and the restaurant, the latter of which is now filled to the brim with chatter and patrons. I'm met with another doorway to my right and a large room illuminated with candles upon the walls: the floor is covered with papers and clothes and all manner of things that I don't even know where to begin to describe. I return my attention to the corridor straight ahead, at the heavy dark floor right under my feet and the plain white front door at the far end. Right next to it is a vacant podium made of heavy black polished stone.  
I can only wonder what the flooding situation is as I make my way over to it and yank it open. The morning sun has disappeared behind heavy gray clouds to the east of here, the whole place smells of freshly fallen rain, and I know the storm is coming soon. There's a light breeze blowing, but I know I need to find my shoes soon because I don't want to be caught up in a torrential downpour barefoot. It's one thing when I'm back upstate and it's the summer time. But here, no way.  
It's times like this I wish I found my pocket knife back home. I don't know: it's just good to have with me.  
I'm striding down the wooden steps to the concrete walkway, which is cold from the rain last night, but dry. My hair falls over my shoulders and my chest once I reach the street for a better view of the French Quarter.  
I turn around to take a better look of the building I'm in at the moment: a three story house with a bright red roof that's in shambles and ten tiny witching windows near the gutter. I wonder what's up there?  
Something catches my eye to my left and I raise my gaze even higher to the trio of telephone wires attached to the side of the building. I recognize my Chucks tied together and strung over them near the top level.  
Delphine did that, I just know it.  
An older woman with dishwater blonde hair and dressed in a yellow slicker and stompy boots strides up the sidewalk to my left. She's carrying a couple of grocery bags, one in each hand.  
“'Scuse me, young man, could I ask you of a favor?” she asks me in a squeaky voice.  
“Uh, sure.” I think it's odd she referred to me as “young man”, but whatever. “What can I do for you?”  
“Could you help me carry this inside here?” She gestures to the sack in her right hand. “Be careful, it's a little heavy.”  
“Oh, yeah, of course! Here—” She lifts it into my hand and I almost drop it onto the sidewalk from its weight. Luckily, I caught it in time and I follow her back into the building.  
She leads me past the restaurant and the stairwell, down the hallway to another stairwell, one that has more than one flight.  
“Very strange place we're in right now,” I observe aloud.  
“This building used to be a hospital,” she explains as we both grip onto the banister with our free hands and ascend the stairs. “Built in 1907, utilized during the First World War and then condemned after the Second, and then reopened about fifteen years ago to serve as a fraternity house before becoming an apartment complex with an accompanying restaurant about five years ago. My ex husband and I used to own this place together before we divorced and then he died last year.”  
“Oh, God, I'm sorry to hear that.”  
“Eh, we've been drifting apart for a while before then.” We reach the first landing and she hesitates to catch her breath. The grocery sack in my hand is heavy but not heavy to drag me down.  
“Are you alright?” I ask her, concerned.  
“Yeah, just—getting older and… more out of shape. I've had problems with my heart… for a few years now. I won't go into it—it's a lot of mumbo jumbo technical jargon that a young fellow such as yourself… need not worry about.” She lets out a low whistle before proceeding onto the second set of stairs before us.  
We reach the third floor, which smells of potatoes and carries with it this heavy damp feeling from the holes in the roof and the impending rain, and the second door on the left. She reaches into her pocket for her key and unlocks the door. I follow her into the front room of her little apartment; to my right stands the kitchen and then the bathroom. I duck past her to set down the grocery sack on the counter when I catch a glimpse out the window. There are my shoes dangling in plain sight over the wire.  
“You know, you've come this far for me—would you care for a cup of tea?” she offers me, setting down the other bag of groceries on the counter behind me.  
“That's very kind of you, but I'll pass, though.” I turn my attention to the window on the side of the room, and the sight of my shoes outside on the wire. “Those are my shoes out there.”  
She looks at me baffled.  
“I was wondering where those came from,” she remarks with a slight chuckle. “I was wondering why you were barefoot, too—” She heads over to the window to open it. “—given it's been raining all night long and there's a lot more coming later tonight with old Hurricane Maureen headed our way.” She turns back to me. “Go back into the front room and fetch me the broom—” She pauses.  
“Joey,” I fill in for her.  
“—Joey! Oh, I love the name Joe. Just something about it so simple and common but so rare at the same time.”  
I feel my face grow warm at the sound of that and I return to the front room of the flat. I spot the broom and the accompanying dust pan leaning up against the wall next to the closet door. I fetch it and bring it back to her.  
“I'm Molly, by the way. Molly Bradley, proud mother of author Candace Bradley.”  
Candace! But I can't remember if that's the same Candace Maya's related to. But I don't really want to ask her about her or if she knows about Maya at all, given I'm still trying to process the information I already have about her. And for all I know, she might have no idea who I'm asking about so I keep my mouth shut.  
Molly leans out the open window to lift them off of the wire. I watch her hook the joined laces with the side of the broom head and, careful not to drop them, bring them into the kitchen. Now I have my shoes: I have no socks.  
“May I ask what happened to these that cause them to be slung over the phone wires?” she proceeds as she gingerly sets them down on the linoleum before me.  
“I have no idea to be honest,” I confess to her. “I think something happened last night, but I can't exactly recall it, though.”  
She raises her eyebrows at me as she rests a hand on the end of the broomstick.  
“Were you drunk?”  
“I had a drink, but that's as far as I know anyways. If there was more, I'd probably remember, but I don't.”  
She chuckles at me.  
“What're you doing tonight?”  
“Tonight? Uh—probably nothin'. I'm here with a friend of mine—he's downstairs—and he still hasn't woken up yet.”  
“You know, now that I think about it, I did see you last night at the bar. Like you and your friend and the bartender were laughing it up together and making a lot of noise. I came down because I could hear you from up here.”  
“Oh, really?”  
“Yeah. It's alright, though, because you boys piped down real quick and the bartender gave you both some kisses.” I'm taken aback by that: Delphine kissed us after we were drunk off our asses. “So tonight, you're probably doing nothing. Okay. Mind if I invite you boys up here for dinner tonight?”  
“I'd love to. I'll have to ask him when he wakes up but I'd love to.” I pick up my shoes at the knot in the laces. “Soon as I find some socks. Thank you again, Molly.”  
“And thank you, Joey,” she follows up, leaning the broom against the edge of the counter. But that still doesn't answer why my shoes ended up where they did after last night. Nor does it answer the framed picture on the shelf next to the door, the one with her a man and a gaping hole underneath them, like something had been cropped out. That last thing stays with me as I’m leaving the apartment and headed back down to the bottom floor and then the other stairwell to Lars’ apartment.


	32. (bud e luv bomb and satan's lounge band strike again)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Borderline experiencing orgasm at the thought of Joey singing When the Levee Breaks.
> 
> “You're gonna make me pick you up, aren't you?”

October 23, 1988. New Orleans, Louisiana.  
We were met with this new hurricane at about mid afternoon, and luckily for me, Lars had woken up, but unluckily for me, he woke up more hungover than me. I offered him to have a cup of afternoon coffee downstairs at the restaurant and he greeted the suggestion by running into the bathroom. Meanwhile, after my headache finally waned off and my stomach had settled enough with the muffin I had had that morning, I went downstairs by myself, once again in my bare feet. Upon walking in through the front entryway again, several of the waitresses in the room and a few of the patrons clapped for me in standing ovation.  
I told the one who served me this morning that I owe her the price of the coffee and the muffin from earlier and she whispered to me that Molly, the owner of the building, had me covered much to my relief.  
She also asked me if I planned on singing again later on and I confessed to her that I didn't know but I am indeed up for the opportunity should the moment arrive. Music is in my soul after all. I took my coffee upstairs back to Lars, who continued to lay in bed, on top of the bedspread. I sat there on the side of the room reading a couple of the drumming magazines he had in the room there as he lay there. He didn't move for most of the midday, that is until the clouds covered the sun again and the wind is beginning to pick up again outside.  
I still have no socks, and for all I know, Delphine probably took those, but after taking a shower in his bathroom, I'm figuring it'd be best to merely put on my Chucks if I plan on going downstairs again. The waitresses downstairs remind me of the girls back at Black Orchid in a way, probably from their kindness towards me, or the fact their outfits fit them quite nicely. But either way, this whole thing in this apartment building here in the French Quarter is making me miss them. I'm missing my girls, my naughty girls who took care of me and Maya for a couple of days. I'm missing their giggling and their dirty dancing. Maybe when I'm done here, I can crawl through the wormhole again back to Oswego and walk back to the strip club.  
And I still haven't heard a peep from Ellen's apartment, either. Maybe she really is gone. And maybe I should probably pay her a visit to honor her body. I don't have my incense with me but I do have my shoes laced up and my hair dripping wet. I'll pay my dues for her, give her a proper ceremony in the best way I know. Her family probably doesn't even know she's gone, after all. Her husband and her daughter out in California are probably clueless that she was living on borrowed time and went last night without anyone knowing.  
Lars, at some point, rolled back over onto his face. He's asleep again and his arms are spread out from his body like those on a rag doll.  
Poor guy. When the storm comes in, I'll carry him downstairs if I have to so we can go to the other stairwell to the third floor to higher shelter.  
I stand to my feet and amble over to the front door once again.  
I stride down the corridor, the floor boards creaking under the soles of my feet once again, and to the door of her apartment. Soft chatter from the restaurant downstairs floats up to my ears as I push open the door.  
I'm greeted by cool moist air and that overly clean smell again. That yellow and black slime that crawled over my hand the night before has appeared again, this time on parts of the floor and on the back of the couch. Mutant banana slugs.  
Careful not to step on them, I weave my way over to the kitchen. No one in there. I turn around in the doorway and this is where I feel a draft on my shoulder. The fact my hair is dripping wet makes it even worse. I shiver and step over a particularly large slug oozing on the carpet, and make my way over to the doorway of her bedroom.  
Inside of the room is a small twin bed with unmade covers and no one inside of them. I enter the room to find a pair of sliding closet doors; I further enter the room to find the doors are mirrored. On the right side of the room is a window, standing wide open so the drapes are billowing with the incoming winds. As I'm making my way over to the window, I stop for a minute to examine myself in the mirrored closet doors.  
I'm as thin as ever, despite keeping myself fed enough. But I fold my arms over my head and touch my elbows so the hem of my shirt lifts up to show off my waist.  
Ellen was right, I am so gosh darn thin: I'm probably going to need a belt soon.  
I pinch my own cheeks to feel my skin, which feels softer much to my surprise.  
A rather hearty gust of wind picks up outside of the window and I lunge for the pane. I yank it shut and the whole apartment is now silent. I notice a glimmer of yellow behind the drape on my left. There's one on the wall right beneath it.  
I stagger away from there only to find another large one slithering onto the carpet from underneath the closet door. And Ellen is nowhere to be found. There's no way someone could have come in here to pick up her body already.  
Unless…  
Out of the corner of my eye, I see something crawling. Actually crawling, not slithering along like the slugs. I turn my head to see a black thing the size of my thumbnail with eight legs jutting out the sides.  
And then I realize it's not on the mirror.  
I turn my head to the side to see the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life crawling up the wall over Ellen's headboard. It's then followed by another, and another, and five more.  
“Holy shit,” I breathe out, as I watch about four more crawl out from under the blankets. And that's I make a run for it. I dodge over the banana slugs on my way back to the door: I almost lose my balance and falling ass over teakettle onto the top of the couch and about three of them plus another big spider. There's one on the wall right next to the door: at first glimpse, I swear it's a scorpion but it's lacking the tail and the lobster pincers. But it's still enough to make my skin crawl as I sprint the hell out of there and back into the hallway.  
I close the door so I make sure none of them get out of there.  
Panting, I return to the safety Lars' apartment, where there are no mutant slugs and big ass spiders but rather a sick Dane and the unmistakable smell of dirty underwear. Thunder rumbles over my head.  
The storm's coming.  
I swipe the arrowhead pendant from the top of the dresser and tie it back around my neck. Once the pendant itself is hidden under the collar of my shirt, I put on my leather jacket and shove the gloves Ellen gave me into the pockets. There's no way I'm wearing that scratchy coat again even if it fits me well.  
I set my hand on Lars' butt and shake him.  
“Hey—” I say to him in a kind but firm voice. “Hey, man.”  
He groans in his throat.  
“Hey, dude. Listen. There's a hurricane coming for us, and I think it's best if we seek better shelter than this—place.” My skin is still crawling from what I saw in Ellen's apartment. But he groans in his throat again and I wonder if he even heard me. I shake him by the butt again.  
“Hey—Hey—Hey—”  
I slap the bottom of his jeans with my open hand, and that doesn't even wake him. I scoff and roll my eyes at him.  
“You're gonna make me pick you up, aren't you?”  
He groans again, and that leaves me no choice. I round the side of the bed and put my right arm under his chest, and my left under his thighs.  
For a little guy, he sure is heavy.  
But I manage to lift him off of the bed and roll him against my chest. I shuffle him down a bit so I have a better grip on him and he's more comfortable. Once I have my right hand on his shoulder and my left arm holding up his knees, his head rolls forward and I can hear him snoring through his nose.  
“God,” I scoff under my breath, but I don't have much other choice. I trudge over to the front door and switch off the lights with my right hand and a bending of my knees. I use the same hand to close the door behind me.  
I carry him down the stairs to the front part of the building. I know there's no room for him in the restaurant, and I'm not taking him two flights of stairs.  
There is however, that one room to the right of me, right across the hall from the restaurant. I take him in there and, sure enough, there is a couch in there, right up against the wall in front of a small blocky coffee table. Once I lay him down, there's a loud CRACK! outside. This is then followed by the lights in the restaurant flickering and then going out and some of the people in there going apeshit over it.  
Lars groans again but he doesn't wake up.  
I hurry out of the room to across the hall.  
“Is everyone alright?” I call out.  
“Hey, there he is!” a woman replies at the sound of my voice.  
“Our man of the hour!” the waitress who served me earlier joins in: I feel her set a hand on my shoulder. An amber light flickers from the far side of the bar and I see a couple of the waitresses lighting candles. I recognize Molly's face next to the flickering light on the left, and she recognizes me.  
“Hey—Joey, right?” she greets me, as the one waitress blows out the match.  
“Yes, ma'am.”  
“I was hoping the power wouldn't go out but—oh well.”  
“Yeah, we were supposed to have one of the biggest garage bands in New Orleans come tonight,” says the waitress next to me, “called Father John Newberry, and even though they're here right now, they're obviously not going to play.”  
“Well, we can still make music with stuff, though,” I point out to her. “Glasses and the edge of the bar for percussion. Or you all can tap dance and that can be percussion.”  
“Tap dance?” a man on the other side of the room laughs at that. I shrug and can't help but laugh with him.  
“I can still sing for you all if you'd like, a capella.” The first song that pops into my mind is “When the Levee Breaks”, only because it's appropriate for the incoming storm surge.  
I bow my head and relax the muscles in my stomach. I'm more woken up this time around and after witnessing the creepy crawlies in Ellen's apartment, I feel everything is more filled up with blood. But I stand up straight so I can better breathe.  
I'm singing for Ellen again, but I'm also singing for the girls at Black Orchid, how I just want to see them again.  
I fill my lungs with air and the smell of candle wicks burning. I close my eyes as I lift my head towards the ceiling so everyone in the room can hear me. I don't have my microphone with me, but I do what I can to project out anyways. I set my hand on my stomach to make sure I'm giving my all right then.  
There's another crack of thunder which is then followed by the loud pattering sound of the incoming downpour. It's pouring rain for the feeling running through me.  
Once I'm reaching the second verse, I hear Lars in the other room blithering nonsense in something that doesn't sound English. Probably Danish.  
I lick my lips as I'm about to sing it out when there's a huge gust of wind and everyone yells out.  
“Holy shit!” Lars hollers from the next room.  
“The storm surge!” Molly shouts from the other side of the bar. Everyone scatters and I make a run for it to the other side of the hall and the other room. Lars is sitting upright on the couch. I reach down my shirt for the arrowhead.  
“Going to Chicago,” I shout out, “going to Chicago!”  
“What?”  
“Fuck this, man, let's get out of here,” I tell him as I crouch down next to him and open a wormhole for us.


	33. (sunrise with the old man)

October 23, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
I'm laying in something cold. Cold and wet. Am I alive?  
I open my eyes. Yes. There's the sky right above me, turning into a richer shade of gray and violet with the setting sun and growing drearier with the impending snow.  
Wait a minute, is it snowing?  
No. Not as far as I can tell anyways. But it did snow a lot at some point because I'm laying in a snow drift. I roll my head over to my right to find a stretch of pure white snow covering someone's yard. I roll my head to the left at the sight of Lars laying face down in the snow.  
I think I fell on a pine cone or a rock because something's poking me in the back. Wincing, I lift myself upright right there on the snow and recline back on my elbows. I recognize the hills off in the distance, and the glimmering lights of the power plant nestled inside of the trees.  
Looks like we're back in Oz Town.  
I blink several times and shake my head about. Something cold and prickly brushes against the nape of my neck. I set a hand on the back of my head to feel the tiny ice crystals formed on my hair. It's not from the snow: I actually have ice in my hair after having showered back at Lars' place and the roots near my head not having dried all the way as of yet. In fact, I shake my head about and the ice makes a tinkling noise upon the movement.  
Lars groans and spits before lifting up his head.  
“—focking—what happened?”  
“We're back upstate, my neck of the woods,” I inform him. “As far as last night goes though, I don't really know.”  
It's difficult even for me to sit upright in the snow but after a flailing of my legs and a roll onto my side followed by my stomach, I manage to get on my hands and knees. I crawl off the thick pile of snow onto a rather thin patch and set my knees on the sidewalk. I turn my head to the left again and there stands Black Orchid with its neon sign flickering on against the snowy darkening sky. I glance over my shoulder at the sight of Lars struggling to crawl towards the sidewalk: his hands sink into the thick snow, which meets up with his shoulder. I stoop over the edge of the sidewalk to help lift him up out of the snow. At least there's no ice on the walkway.  
But the muscles in my back and in my stomach quiver at the feeling of lifting him up once again. Indeed, once I lift him out of the snow drift, I almost lose my balance and fall over onto the drift on the other side of the sidewalk with him on top of me. But I catch myself and he's leaning up against me. I straighten him upright as he's pressed up against me. In the waning light, he's looking as though he's about ready to pass out.  
“We couldn't go back to Portland?” he demands, his speech slurring. “My wife'll kill me, though.”  
“As far as I can tell, she can suck both of our dicks,” I assure him, pushing myself off of him so he can have a little room to breathe. “Come on, let's go where it's warm—and where there are those girls, too.”  
He shakes his head but I can tell he's more lucid now more than ever even as he rubs his eyes and gives the hair at the back of his head a shake. A couple of snowflakes drift down around him: I peer up at the darkening sky and I know it's only the beginning for tonight. I grab him by the arm and hurry up the walkway with him to the front step, and memories of that night are coming back to me, even though it was a little more than a week ago. So much has happened as of late that it feels so distant and so long ago. I knock on the door panel, just like the first time.  
I'm met with silence for a moment and then the door swings open to reveal those copper colored ringlets once again.  
“Hello, Morgan,” I greet her.  
“Oh, hey!” she exclaims, beaming. “We were wondering where you guys have been—come on in!”  
I keep my grip on Lars' arm as we head into the club once again. Mrs. Hamilton enters the room from the back doorway with a look of concern on her face.  
“Joey! Lars! Oh thank God you boys are here again.” She strides on over to me with her arms wide open and throws them around me.  
“You heard about what happened to your friends, right?” she asks me with a look of concern upon her face.  
“Of course,” I reply to her, “I visited Brick in the hospital, but I don't know where Spence ran off to. I don't even know what happened to him.”  
“Spencer was the one who donated a lot of his blood to Brick,” Morgan clarifies.  
“That's right! A—strapping young lady came to pick him up at the hospital down there in Syracuse but I don't know anything else other than that.”  
“Yeah—that was Sonia,” I fill in. “And I don't know what happened to her, either.”  
“How about her, the other girl—what was her name, Maya?”  
“Maya, yeah.”  
“Let's just say she's,” Lars joins in, “—kind of in a rough spot right now, back in Seattle.”  
“I did happen to find out a little bit more about her, too, though,” I point out, “like, she's… she's been around the place a bit.”  
“How so?” asks Morgan, folding her arms over her chest and giving her hair a toss back with a flick of her head.  
“Foster child—I guess she was also, um… kinda raped.”  
Morgan gasps in horror at that and clasps her hands to her mouth. Mrs. Hamilton closes her eyes and winces.  
“Yeah, but the thing about it is,” Lars fills in for me, “we do not really know for sure as of yet, like Sonia hasn't said a peep about it.”  
“And I've always been kind of reluctant to take her to the cops for this very reason,” I admit. “So what exactly happened with Brick? Besides—y'know. Ending up in Syracuse.”  
“Lap dance gone horribly wrong,” Mrs. Hamilton says in a single breath.  
“Horribly, horribly wrong,” Morgan adds.  
“Okay, that makes sense now,” I stop them right there before my stomach turns at the very thought of it. I rub my hands together as I catch a glimpse of Lupe and Louie entering the room from the kitchen behind Morgan.  
“Hey, Lupe,” I greet her with a sly grin.  
“Hey, I was wondering what happened to you,” she replies with a gentle peck on my cheek. Louie puts her arms around me and then does the same for Lars.  
“So are you two fellas spending the night tonight with us again?” Mrs. Hamilton asks us after fetching up a sigh.  
“We might as well,” Lars confesses with a shrug as Louie stands next to him with her arm around his shoulders, “it was starting to snow when we came in a little bit ago.”  
“Cindy's on her day off, by the way,” Morgan informs us, pushing a ringlet behind her ear.  
“So no chicken soup tonight,” I conclude.  
“We can still have fun, though,” Mrs. Hamilton points out. “Come on, girls, let's get these boys something nice and hot.”  
They double back towards the kitchen which allows Lars and me to have a seat at the table closest to the kitchen door. I watch Lupe bring up the rear with her big hoop earrings and her fitted black top accentuating her body. I had encountered many girls the past several days but there was something about Lupe, something quiet and I liked it. I even think Louie's pretty hot herself.  
“Those two girls--Lupe and Louie, sure are something,” I confess to Lars. He seems distracted, staring up at the ceiling and over to the other side of the room. “What's up?”  
He frowns, but doesn't reply.  
“Lars.”  
He peers over his shoulder as if something's following him. I roll my eyes at him and I don't think he notices me. I think back to the first night he and I were here together, and the fact he still didn't answer my question.  
“Okay, I'm gonna be frank with you,” I tell him in a firm voice. “I'm gonna ask you why'd you even come here again and your answer better not be to get away from your wife.”  
He nibbles his bottom lip as he gazes on at me.  
“Alright. You really want to know?”  
“Yes. The fact you never told me the first time should tell you that yes, I really wanna know why you're here.  
“Okay. I've been looking for Maya myself for the same reason why you are so reticent on taking her to the authorities. She has been missing for over a year—like she went missing last summer over in… Boston, I believe. Boston or Amherst, some place in Massachusetts, I can't fully remember. And the police were taking so long that the trail fell cold. But because I have a tie to her, I wasn't one to give up on her. I took matters into my own hands and began research on her, drawing conclusions on her and whatnot. Since Metallica toured up here around then, and we went on break back in September, I took the opportunity to come up here on my own terms. But it's come with a price. In fact, I became so obsessed with finding her that… my wife fell off the wagon.”  
I blink several times at him. I don't know what to make of this.  
“That's it?” I ask, never changing the tone of my voice.  
“That's it. That is how the cookie crumbles, my friend.”  
“You dragged me all the way over to Portland and Seattle and then down to New Orleans for that?”  
“Well, not exactly. I took you there because I felt those places would help you find some answers, too. I knew you were vehement on finding out what happened to her as well. I thought we could look together. I took you there because—it got a little lonely going at it solo for a while.”  
“Tell me about it.” I gesture to myself. “Guy who got kicked out of Anthrax for unknown reasons. That still doesn't explain why you're here in Black Orchid and upstate New York, though.”  
“I came here because I got word that her sister was over in Rochester doing a book tour and I forgot Marcia and Sonia were there at the moment, and so I swung by here in Oswego to relax a bit.”  
“Wait a minute, doing a book tour?”  
“Yes.”  
I pause and knit my eyebrows together.  
“Is her name… Candace Bradley?”  
“Yes,” he replies, reluctant, “how'd you know?”  
“Her mom is your landlady down in New Orleans.”  
“Really? How'd you find that one out?”  
“She got my shoes off the telephone wires and we chatted a bit. I guess Delphine threw them up there after we blacked out last night.”  
“Wait. Why would Delphine do that?”  
“Why did even we black out last night?”  
Before Lars can say anything else, Morgan darts through the kitchen doors with big bowls of clam chowder and accompanying spoons in either hand. I thank her as she gave us both kisses on the cheek. Now I have even more questions as I wolfed down the cubes of potato and chunks of clams. God, I'm so hungry: then again, I barely ate all day and I didn't pay my tab at the restaurant down in New Orleans, either.  
I'm so hungry in fact that I ask for a second bowl and a third.  
And once I lay down the spoon after cleaning out my fourth helping, I'm about ready to fall onto the floor with my pants unbuttoned. Lars meanwhile has had five and the very sound of that is enough to make me want to take off my pants.  
“My goodness, you boys were hungry tonight,” Mrs. Hamilton remarks.  
“We barely ate anything today,” Lars tells her, bowing his head and covering his mouth with the back of his hand.  
“Well, I did,” I correct him, taking off my jacket and laying it over the back of my chair, “you didn't really eat anything so to speak.” I have a hand on my stomach, which feels as hard as a rock. I think I ate too much.  
No, I definitely ate too much as I'm getting up and feeling like I'm about ready to fall over.  
And I'm amazed I even managed to walk on over to the nook I took a nap in the first day I was here. I lay down on my back with both of my hands resting on my belly. I'm about ready to unbutton my pants when Lars strolls on over to me with a punch drunk grin on his face. I let out a low whistle.  
“Holy hell, that was delicious,” he mutters to me. “Tasty, in fact.”  
“Yeah, I’ll say,” I reply with kind of a snicker. “I could eat about a thousand more of those stupid things, though.”  
“Me, too.”  
We fall into silence before slowly looking at one another.  
“Nahhhh,” we both say.  
“I'd weigh two tons,” he points out.  
“My stomach would get all bloated,” I follow along, “can you imagine a skinny minny like me with a big potbelly on me?”  
“I really can't, man.” He taps on my knees. “Scooch.”  
“Why?”  
“I want to lay down,” he insists.  
“Go upstairs.” I gesture behind my head. “There's a bed up there. There's a couple of beds up there.”  
“Why are you laying here then?”  
“'Cause I can. I also need to rest for a minute—I've got about two pounds of clam chowder inside my belly right now and I can't hardly think straight.”  
“I will carry you.”  
“Me?” I lift my head up to better look at him.  
“Yes. Hey, you've picked me up before.”  
“Yeah, well—”  
“What?”  
“You're—you.”  
“Oh, come on, man.”  
“What?”  
“It's because I'm short, isn't it?”  
“No.” I lay my head back down and rest the backs of my hands over my eyes.  
“Admit it,” he challenges me. “You don't think I can pick you up even though I'm a lot heavier than you are.”  
“Maybe if I didn't have half of Lake Ontario inside of my stomach, you probably could.”  
“Okay, now we're just pulling out threads on this one. Besides, even though you are taller than me, you are not that much taller than me, Joey. And you're way skinnier than me.”  
He smacks his lips and I can hear fabric rustling.  
“Tell you what,” he starts again, “I carry you up the stairs to the loft, and when we see her again, I demand Sonia give us some answers. I also make it up to you—and we go to Seattle for leisure and I treat you to one of Marcia's donuts back in Portland.”  
I lift my hands off my eyes to see him standing before me with his belly poking out over his belt and his hands pressed to his hips.  
“You will?” I ask him.  
“Yes.”  
I nibble on my bottom lip. “How about—you carry me upstairs, tuck me into bed, do all that, and all the while remain honest with me until we uncover the full truth about Maya.”  
“Well—” He glances off to the side.  
“No deal then.” I put my hands back onto my eyes. I hear him smack his lips again.  
“How about—I carry you upstairs, tuck you into bed, do all that, remain truthful about her—and give you twenty dollars.”  
I lift my hands off my eyes again.  
“Double or nothing and you admit you've got a thing for Lizzy.”  
“Dude!”  
“Lars—”  
He sighs, exasperated. “Alright, fine.”  
I'm laying perfectly still as he slips his hands under my shoulders and my thighs. He groans and grunts but by some miracle he actually does it. The only problem is I'm all scrunched up in his arms as he's walking over to the staircase. I've got my head smooshed up against his chest and my arms coiled up against my chest, and even with the full feeling inside of my stomach, I'm actually quite comfortable. But I don't think he is for a minute, reaching the top of the stairs and breathing heavy. He stops, still holding me close to him, and I want to laugh.  
“Hey, man, a bet's a bet,” I tell him.  
“Of course—of—focking—course.”  
He continues on over the floor to the second staircase.  
By the time we reach the top, he's huffing and puffing and about ready to blow a house down. But he continues onto the bed on the right and lays me down there on my back. He falls onto his back, exhausted. I slip my hands underneath my head.  
“Tuck yourself in, man,” he pants, his chest heaving. “I'll give you—forty dollars—in the—in the morning. And yes, I—” He gasps and swallows and lays there with his mouth wide open for a few seconds. “—I have a thing for Lizzy.”  
I close my eyes as I shake my head at that. That's all I want right then. That, and pushing off my shoes, and letting them fall onto the floor next to the bed, and falling asleep.  
I wake up to the feeling of my hand on my stomach, which is still plenty full from the night before, and my feet as cold as ice. But I'm quite comfortable laying there on the bed as I roll my head over the pillow. I open my eyes to find gray morning light already and the faint, silvery silhouette of a heavy Army jacket.  
“'Morning, Mr. Lang,” I whisper to him, my voice breaking from a lack of water. The sun's incoming rays shine over the broken clouds outside and the afterglow shines over his gaunt face. He merely smiles at me as I lay there staring at him, fading in and out with the darkness. The sides of his coat seem to dissolve into nothing, as if they're being pulled into a black hole, like the one in my dreams. In fact, the very sight of him right next to me feels like a dream because I don't have my dream catcher on hand again. But he leans over my face and my neck with a thoughtful look.  
“Your friend is going to be okay,” he informs me in an extra breathy voice.  
“Which one?” I ask him, blinking several times for my sight to clear up. “Brick or Spence?”  
But he doesn't answer me. Instead, he fades out with the incoming rays of the sunrise. I drop my gaze to find Lars under the covers of the bed next to me: I recognize the Betty Boop tattoo on the arm holding him from behind. I shake my head and lift my gaze to the ceiling overhead.  
“You dirty dog you,” I breathe out.


	34. (a dusty old bible)

October 24, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
I'm up and Adam before Lars is and heading downstairs to see if the girls, aside from Lizzy, are all in early. I make my way down the first flight of stairs to the second level and I find Mrs. Hamilton and Morgan seated at the table there. They lift their gazes from each other to see me descending the stairs with my hand on the banister like I'm royalty.  
“'Morning, Joey,” Mrs. Hamilton greets me, “you're up early.”  
“The other alternative was just sitting there and staring up at the ceiling for hours on end until Lars and Lizzy wake up,” I reply in a single breath. “I also came down to see if anyone's in today, and thinking of taking a walk back into town back to my place.” I reach the base of the stairs and mosey on over to them as if I'm putting on a show for them.  
“That's right, I forgot you live here,” Morgan admits, brushing a ringlet of hair out of her face.  
“The other thing about it is I don't really have anything to eat back at my place,” I add.  
“Oh, shit. Well—let's change that, shall we?” She flashes me a wink.  
“Hey, if you gals threw quite the birthday party for me, I'm sure you can,” I assure her.  
“We should invite that young lady who took Brick and the other boy down to Syracuse, too,” Mrs. Hamilton suggests.  
“Sonia?” I fill in for her.  
“Sonia! That was it!”  
“She and her sister are over in Rochester,” I explain to her.  
“Aw. Well, maybe you and Lars can bring them on over here. Isn't Lizzy upstairs?”  
“Yes she is.” I have to stifle a chuckle with that.  
“Knew that was her car around back,” Morgan points out. “Are you feeling hungry right now?”  
“Getting there,” I answer her. “I'm a hockey player, baby doll. I'm always hungry.”  
She giggles at me and gives her ringlets another toss back from her face.  
“You'd make a great male stripper, Joe,” she says with a smirk, “now that I really think about it, and now that really look at you.”  
“I don't know about that,” I confess to her with a shrug. “I'm awful thin.” Ellen's voice is still lingering in my memory.  
“So?”  
“So? Those guys are like body builders. And I ain't no body builder.”  
“I see him more as a dancer, to be honest,” Mrs. Hamilton joins in with a wink to Morgan.  
“I ain't no dancer, either.”  
“Oh, come on, that long lush hair of yours, those long sensual legs, that beautiful body… grade A dancer material.”  
Before I can say anything, the sound of rustling blankets behind me catches my attention. I glance over my shoulder to the stairwell and I hear Lars and Lizzy whispering to one another.  
“I'll be right back,” I tell them, holding up a single finger and doubling back to the stairs. Lizzy lets out a light giggle once I come within earshot. I reach the top of the stairs to find her standing facing the foot of the bed with no top on, and Lars laying on his back with the blankets around his filled out waist.  
“Oh, hey, Joey!” he calls out to me; Lizzy whirls around to face me, and puts her hands over her bare nipples.  
“No, no, it's okay,” I assure her with a wave of my hands, “I just came up here to see if the two of you wanna go on over to Rochester for some breakfast.”  
“Oh.” Lars hoists himself up onto his elbows. “I would love to, seeing as—Marcia and Sonia are over there right now.”  
“And I can so drive you guys over there if you'd like,” Lizzy suggests.  
“I can also ask Sonia what the fuck happened to Spence, too,” I add to it.

***************************************

We arrive in Rochester once the fog from Lake Ontario is beginning to rise with the incoming morning sun. Lizzy's car is so warm and comfortable that I have no desire to climb out once we arrive at Marcia and Sonia's upholstery shop.  
“So you'll just ask them about your friend and we can go to breakfast?” she asks me once she tugs on the parking lever. “If that's all we're for, anyways.”  
“Yeah, sure,” I confess into the mirrored lenses of her sunglasses. I tug on the lapels of my jacket to keep in the warmth before climbing outside.  
I feel the winds picking up again as I round the front of the car and make my way to the front door. I enter the shop to find papers and things strewn about the floor. Some of the spools of fabric are laying on the floor, and I can hear Marcia and Sonia arguing near the back room. I glance back out the front door at Lizzy and Lars in the car and fetch up a sigh. He leans over the head of seat to say something and that's when I turn back around.  
Careful not to slip on anything, or better yet, rest my foot on any of these papers and dirty it up, I weave my way over to the aisle which takes me back to the loom. I spot Marcia shoveling through a box on a shelf next to the row with the spools of thread while Sonia is down on the floor searching through a box full of files.  
“For the umpteenth time, Sonia,” Marcia insists, exasperated, “he told you he gave it back to you!”  
“Well, where the fuck is it?” she demands. She lifts her head to see me. “Hey, Joey.”  
“What're you—looking for?” I ask them, feeling nervous.  
“My Bible,” she replies, annoyed. “Lars supposedly gave it back to me but I don't happened to it.”  
“You probably misplaced it,” Marcia points out, putting the lid back onto the box.  
“I've got a question for you, Marsh—why would I misplace something like that?”  
“Why would you even bring it here in the first place?” She delves through another box on the shelf.  
“Yeah, I've got a question for you, Sonia,” I begin, my voice firm and my arms folded over my chest. “Where's Spence? Like, what happened to him?”  
“I'm telling you, Sonia, it's not here,” she rambles, dropping the papers back into the box and paying no attention to me.  
“Yeah, and I know he said it, I just wish he would've specified.”  
“Probably not even his fault, Sonia,” Marcia blathers.  
“By the way, Spence has been at our place for the past couple of days—he just hasn't had the strength to do anything.”  
I frown at her and then flash an annoyed glimpse back over at the door, where Lars and Lizzy are awaiting me.  
“What do you mean, he's at your place?”  
She nibbles on her bottom lip.  
“After he got out of the hospital, the doctor said to take him home but he didn't feel like going back to his place for a bit. Something like… he worried about people bombarding him with questions or something or other, I don't remember his full explanation.”  
I relax a bit and gaze off to the side for a second.  
“Explains why he didn't answer my call,” I mutter aloud. “But why didn't you say anything, though?”  
“Well, like I said, he wanted to be alone for a bit. And so I offered him to come over to our little place and—he's there right now. Our place is right down the street and around the corner so the door's unlocked if you wanna visit him.”  
“Okay. That's all I wanted to know.”  
“It's also gonna be a little while longer before we receive results for Maya, too,” Marcia adds. “That's something that needs a lot of time anyway.” She resumes searching through the boxes. I shrug at that and wheel back around the front door. Before leaving, I catch Sonia muttering “why would it even be here in the first place?”  
Once I'm back outside, I face Lizzy in the front seat and point down the street to the apartment buildings near the corner. I mouth “I'll be right back” and flash her and Lars a thumbs up. They flash a couple of them back at me and that's my cue to head on down to Marcia and Sonia's place. I walk with haste so I can return to the car quick enough so we can go to breakfast. I don't know which one it is once the stairwells enter my view, but once I turn the corner, I do recognize Spence's car parked down the street and Spence himself seated on the top step before their front door, next to a fake skeleton dangling from beneath the porch light.  
“Hey!” he calls to me.  
“Holy shit, dude, how've you been?” I hustle up the steps to give him a hug. He even feels weary and tender.  
“God, what an experience that was,” he notes once I let go of him. “Giving so much of my blood to Brick and everything. But I'm cleared to play hockey again in a couple of days. I was also told that Brick can come home today so later on, I'll drive over to Syracuse to get him.”  
“Oh, thank fuck. But how've you been here with Marcia and Sonia?”  
“Bunking out with them is a whole other can of worms, dude,” he says. “I'm just gonna leave it at that.”  
“You're telling me. They're freaking out down at their shop right now over looking for Sonia's Bible, so I think it's best you do.” I raise an eyebrow at the whole thing, though. “Wonder why Sonia's making such a huge deal over such a dusty old Bible, though.”  
“Don't really know,” he confesses with a shrug. “My guess is because of this, but who can say for sure.”  
He reaches into his pocket for something and hands me a sliver of that flimsy Bible paper, like a clipping from one of the pages. It smells musty, just like what I'd expect from an old Bible.  
“What's this?”  
“Something that fell out of the Bible in question—and it's funny you say they're going apeshit over it because it's been under my bed. Something about Marcia's bakery or something or other. It just says 'Smell the Magic' and then a phone number. I called the number and got some woman at a company called 'Maxwell Industries' and I thought of Brick, you know?”  
“Oh, yeah.”  
“And she asked me about myself and I just said I found a phone number to this, and she told me not to call it again. So I hung up and that was it.” He examines the piece of paper again and snorts. “Really, that is hilarious that they're going batshit insane over her Bible like that.”  
“Right, right… do you want me to tell them, or—?”  
“Nah. They'll figure it out sooner or later.”  
“Okay, well… I'm glad you can play hockey again, though. Maybe, since Halloween is next week, we can play then?”  
“Hey, yeah! We can all wear weird shit on our masks and go trick or treating at Denny's. I'll tell Barney and Billy later on, and I'll tell Brick on the way home.”  
“It's a deal.” I bump his fist before returning down the front steps. I stop for a second.  
“By the way, I'm going to breakfast right now. Would you like to come with?”  
“I already ate. That's the cool thing with living with these two ladies is Marcia is hell of a baker. Like I highly recommend it when you get the chance. But thank you, though, man.”  
As I'm walking away from there, I start to wonder about Maxwell Industries, especially on what is their deal, and why would Sonia, of all people, have that phone number written down next to her sister's bakery name. I can only assume that Sonia herself is working for them and she knows something I don't. Lars knew something about Maya that I didn't know before; maybe she does, too. As I'm returning to Lizzy's car, I think back to Maya's whole line about worrying about digging too deep into the earth and drowning in any water she finds. My hope is I don't drown, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm gonna pester you all with this until I hear from someone.
> 
> You have one job as a reader and that's comment. FromtheWasteland did. Be like her and tell me what you think or go away. Barring “sorry to bother you” and telling me to die, it can literally be anything from “how dare you” to “AHHHHH!” or, the king of comments, “thank you for contributing to fandom” I. DON'T. CARE. just… say something because unless you're illiterate, you, as readers, desperately need to throw writers a bone. Stop being so passive. Jesus Christ, we're giving you free material and you're stealing from us!


	35. (the second hockey game)

October 31, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
I never have had anything to speak of on my hockey mask: it's always been a plain white mask with nothing on it and the inside is patterned after my face. But given it's Halloween for our next round of hockey, I decided to glue some feathers on the front and clip a little lanyard of feathers on a piece of my hair. I missed sporting the feathers so much, running around with the big headdress atop my head like a crown. I feel I should also have a devil's tail stuck to the seat of my pants on top of that, but I don't have anything in my apartment that resembles to anything like that.  
Oh, well.  
Earlier this week, Morgan and Mrs. Hamilton took me grocery shopping and so now, congrats to me, I have a kitchen full of food! In fact, I went to bed last night feeling so full of pasta and tomato sauce. I woke up this morning feeling like a cat all curled up and cozy underneath all of my blankets. I didn't even mind the fact Vera stood there at the foot of my bed and gazed back at me in the darkness.  
I'm leaving the place already wearing a white jersey with black sleeves and the feathers dangling on the side of my head, and my skates slung over my shoulder. As I'm walking towards the curb to await for Spence, I catch a glimpse up the street to the House of Grey. To think Maya isn't there anymore. I'm still haunted by the memory of her turning into a dragon back in Seattle. I can only imagine how Lars feels about it. But I hope she's alright.  
Spence's car rolls up to the curb before me and I stick my things into the trunk before climbing into the front seat next to him. He looks refreshed and rested, which is always good news. The million dollar question now is how is Brick doing and will he even be there when we go to play for today.  
“I still have some Good and Plenties in the glove box in case you get hungry,” he tells me as we're rolling up to the hockey rink.  
“Nah, I'm good,” I assure him.  
We climb out in unison and head on into the area with the benches. I'm straddling the bench, and tacking on my knee pads, and lacing up my skates when, through my bangs, I catch a glimpse of a pair of feet and the base of a stick striding up towards me. I sit upright to find Brick walking towards me with a smooth black cane in his hand.  
“There he is!” I declare to him. He rubs his eye with his free hand once he stops before me.  
“Here I am now,” he replies in a broken voice. “I think I'm gonna sit this one out, Joe. I'm just—not feeling it right now.”  
“Okay,” I assure him as I put on the black leather gloves Ellen gave me. “That's alright. It's not like we're competing with each other or with someone else anyways.”  
He groans inside of his throat which prompts a rub of his eye again.  
“God, Joe, you're such a good captain.”  
I shrug at that. “Eh. I try my best.”  
“Really, though. There are just… too many bad eggs trying to sour our stomachs…” His voice trails off and that's when I stand up, still straddling the bench and holding my mask with one hand, and pat on the hard wood underneath me with the other.  
“Here, man. Have a seat.”  
“Oh, man, Joe—” He groans and grunts as he takes a seat right in front of me, struggling to bend his knees all the while. He heavily sits down on the bench with his cane right in between his legs. I climb off of the bench backwards so I'm right behind him once I'm standing up.  
“Do you want anything?” I offer him as I hover right next to him. “Glass of water? A quick bite to eat over at Denny's?”  
“No, no. It's okay. I just—need to catch my breath.”  
I frown at him as I walk away from him to fetch my hockey stick.  
Spence checked him out of the hospital and took him home last week. Surely, he could have brought his energy back up within a day or so. I know that would've been the case had it been me or either of us because we're strong enough. But no.  
In fact—then again, I might just be overthinking it here, but he seems to be behaving a lot like Maya. I turn around to take one last look at him before I enter the rink and he's bowed over his lap, resting his head in his hands. His skin is pale, too.  
But he's lacking that scar she has on her forehead. Maybe I am overthinking it. Who the hell knows.  
Spence floats over to the entrance of the rink to let me inside.  
“Those are new,” he points out the gloves on my hands.  
“A very sweet but very sick old lady gave me these,” I reply in an almost absent tone; I glance over my shoulder one last time before I make contact with the ice. I gesture for him to come closer to me.  
“Does Brick seem to be acting… strange to you?” I ask him in a low voice.  
“Strange?” Spence glances back at him there on the bench on the other side of the wall. “Maybe sort of lethargic but I think strange is bit of a stretch, to be honest.”  
“Well, you regained all your strength back, though,” I point out. “But then again, he's also the one who got injured. And cleared to play, too.”  
Spence looks over at him again, this time with a bit of a scowl on his face.  
“You know—now that I really think about it, yeah. He is acting a little… anemic, I wanna say. I was anemic for a couple of days after I donated to him. Such that I couldn't even drive. He got here just fine, though. He's kinda acting like that girl you found.”  
“Maya.”  
“Yeah. How she refuses to eat and shit, and Barney and Billy are both like 'she's all exhausted but we can't hardly keep two bites of food in her, she always spits it out.'”  
“Huh.” I catch a glimpse of the two of them slipping through the gate themselves, both of them with starry wizard hats atop their heads. “Speaking of Barney and Billy—magic men.”  
“Injun Joe,” Barney greets me, adjusting the strap underneath his chin in order to put on his mask.  
“Pffff, Injun. That word has haunted me since I was a little boy. I should write a song about it—” I turn to Spence right as he's reaching into his pocket for something. “That reminds me, what's your costume?”  
He takes out a sheet of paper and smacks it onto his chest. It's a big gold and red letter “S”.  
“Superman?!” Billy exclaims.  
“The 'S' man.”  
“Nah, man, that's Superman!” I insist with a chuckle. “Pff, 'S' man—anyways. Let's get on it.”  
I stop to put on my mask and we get right to playing. It's so strange playing without our goalie, and every so often, through the eyes of the mask, I take a look over at him there on the bench with his head bowed.  
I don't think he looked up at us one time, even as we're nearing our first lunch break and I'm pretending like I'm about to make a winning shot. The edges of the blades grate over the ice as I'm flying along the rink with the stick out in front of me. I've got the puck right there and I'm about to make a big turn for a clear shot right across from the rink.  
And I do it. And I see her apparition again, floating over the top of the wall in that eerie glow once again. I lift my mask up off my head to make sure I'm not hallucinating. I stand upright to make sure it really is in fact her.  
“Maya—” I sputter out to her. “—Maya, what're you—?”  
“HEAD'S UP!” Barney and Billy call out from behind me.  
SMACK!  
"Head's up!" Brick feebly hollers from down the rink. But it's too late: I’m hit and I’m spinning around on my skates. I almost lose my balance but I manage to tug myself back before I fall ass over teakettle on the ice. I straighten up but I'm dizzy. I lay a hand on my lower back where Barney hit me.  
“You alright, man?” Spence calls out to me, the piece of paper on his chest fluttering with his movement.  
“Yeah. Not the first time that happened to me, but still—” I groan and grunt as I'm stretching my back. Or maybe he hit me in the butt. Either way, it stings and hurts a lot and I'm grimacing.  
“What you were even doing?” Barney asks me with a chuckle.  
“Thought I saw something on the other side of the wall.”  
“Well, it's funny you say that,” Billy points out, “'cause there is someone on the other side of the wall for you.” He points to the benches where Brick has probably lay down because I don't see him and Lars is standing before the entrance with his arms folded over his chest.  
“Hey!”  
“Oi!” he calls back to me. I show them the signal for time out and glide on over to him.  
“What's up?” I greet him, taking my mask off all the way and leaning my elbow against the top of the wall. “How'd you know I was here?”  
“I was over at Black Orchid with Lizzy and Morgan, and they both pointed out the overhead stadium lights to me from the front step. Morgan also told me you're a hockey player and that's what this was.”  
“Well, that's—kinda the way true. I do it because I love it, like how I love singing and making music.”  
He smirks and shakes his head.  
“Exactly how I feel about tennis. Just a different beast, though. All of the sweat and the running around in the white shorts…”  
“The late nights at Denny's, the long hard days of floating around on a patch of ice wearing nothing but knee pads and knives on your feet—it's pretty brutal. I dunno 'bout tennis, but… why do you think I have a hole in my teeth?”  
“I came to see how you were doing, of course,” he greets me, reaching into the interior pocket of his coat for something, “and also to give you this.”  
He takes out a black jewel case with the word “Soundgarden” imprinted on the front in bright white lettering. Beneath that reads “ULTRAMEGA OK” in big block lettering. I'm not sure what's on the cover itself.  
“Dominique sent me a copy and one for you, too,” he explains.  
“Oh, yeah, that's right!” I recall: they released their first album today!  
“They're playing all the way over in Buffalo on Saturday, if you can believe that,” he informs me.  
“I can,” I admit to him. “Buffalo's a lot bigger than you think, after all.”  
He shows me a playful grin and I see where he's getting at here.  
“So you wanna take me to go see Soundgarden,” I conclude. “This little band out of Seattle whom of which were an unknown to me until not even a week ago.”  
“Yes. And since there's no cover charge, perhaps your buddies back here would like to join us.”  
“That's gonna be a room full of trouble, I'm gonna tell you that right now.”  
“Marcia and Sonia'll be there. So will Dominique and Nancy.”  
I stick the tip of my tongue into the corner of my mouth as I gape at him. I peer over my shoulder at Spence, Barney, and Billy, all three of whom are milling about the ice.  
“That's really gonna be a room full of trouble,” I remark.


	36. (the soundgarden show)

November 5, 1988. Buffalo, New York.  
“Okay, so where is this place?” Lars asks me.  
“It's right down this way. I've come here a few times when I was with the cover band thing.”  
We're about a block from the venue in question. When Lars told me about it after our hockey game, I knew exactly where we were headed that Saturday. I'm in the front seat next to him while Billy, Barney, and Spence are all piled in the back seat. Brick has been feeling so weak as of late: yesterday he couldn't hardly stand on his own two feet without Billy and Barney helping him out with their arms around him. Billy suggested he go back to the hospital down in Syracuse but he furiously shook his head in resistance. He lay on the couch of his living room wrapped up in two blankets and still shivering. His skin had washed out, much like Maya's skin, and he looked like death had warmed up to him.  
That was the last I saw him and the last Spence had said about him was his reassuring me that he was strong.  
We're hockey players and most of all, his best friend is Joey Belladonna. He's got all the power in the world to heal and overcome this.  
And with that, I know for a fact he's right.  
Lars wasn't willing to dick around in Oswego for very long this morning because the ride over to Buffalo is so long. At first I felt bad because the three of them were all crammed into the back seat of this car, this car that Nancy and Dominique lent us because apparently the whole hydrogen thing is spreading back east. That's as far as I know: I don't know the full story of that. All I know is we're taking this five hour drive in a hydrogen car that is completely silent.  
The sole noise, at first, came from Lars' copy of Ultramega OK, which we played for the first leg of the trip to bring us into the mood. I had given it a listen back at my place and I will admit I was a little turned off by it at first. But here in the car, with the power poles whirring past us and the lush dark forests on either side of us, gave it a whole other spin. I'm able to hear it with fresh new ears and feeling it flow along with the momentum of the car.  
The other source of noise is the lake effect rain bringing the hammer down on the roof overhead. I'm looking out the window, through the streaks of rain on the glass, at the night life which is still alive and well in the other big city in upstate. We're around the real upscale part of town, the part that's synonymous with Yonkers back in the City. But I know this part well enough to point out the place, right there on the corner with the cheesy little hot pink neon signs on the front.  
“I think I remember you playing in here, Joe,” Barney recalls.  
“I've come here a couple of times,” I point out, “I forget who I was singing with at the time—like I can't really remember if it was Megaforce or Medusa, but yeah. This is one of those dive bars that looks like a total dump on the outside but everything actually sounds fantastic on the inside, though.”  
“Okay, now—where to find a place to park…” Lars mutters to himself.  
“—and that's probably the one bitch about this place, too,” I continue, “is you gotta get your ass here early or you can't find a parking spot worth shit otherwise you're gonna have to walk—”  
“Oh, right there!” Billy pipes up from the back. “Right there, Lars!”  
“Good eyes, Bill,” I remark as Lars rolls up to the corner before the venue itself. “We could skip a couple of times and we'd be there.”  
“We ain't gonna be skippin', Joe,” Spence cracks at me. “Not in this rain.”  
“Skipping in the rain!” Lars declares as he pulls on the parking lever. I tug my hood over my head before climbing out. I wait for the four of them and then we walk a couple of feet to the front door.  
It's a little strange being in the dim lit floor before that tiny stage instead of on the stage itself. I'm getting flashbacks to the first bands I sang with in high school, not just to this place but elsewhere in upstate New York. It's not surprising Dominique has heard of me, but it also is surprising in a way. Anthrax and I didn't hear of each other before I joined them, but then again, she is a reporter, so I don't know what I'm saying.  
The five of us are clustered near the back of the room behind an already good sized crowd. I count about ten different guys who more or less resemble me, all skinny and frizzy haired. Every other guy is wearing a shirt with the names of bands I've never even heard of before—except for one with a Saxon shirt, which Lars points out as handmade. On the other hand, I count about three girls and they're all on the other side of the room. Barney and Billy duck out to the bar for a couple of drinks.  
Within not even a couple of minutes, Soundgarden joins the stage: Matt with his long golden blond hair shimmering in the blue and pink floodlights overhead, Hiro with a beat up looking black bass guitar slung over his shoulder, and Kim with his long black hair flowing behind his head like a filmy curtain as he's making his way to his position. Chris soon follows, with his long black curls, his open shirt, faded dark jeans, and scuffed up leather boots.  
They begin playing.  
And I take back what I said when I said everything sounds good in there: their sound as a whole is enormous, like Ultramega pales in comparison.  
Kim’s guitar screeches, churns, bubbles, and spins sideways and in every which direction. Some of the weirdest tunings I’m probably ever gonna hear in my life. And speaking of tunings, Matt’s drumming inspires me to return to my own drum kit. I wonder where it is now that I think about it. Hiro thrashes forth and holds the whole thing together like a snarling glue.  
And then there's Chris' singing.  
I think back to the day I auditioned for Anthrax, when I sang for Scott and Frankie, and the producer told them I was the man for them.  
Here, it really is like looking at myself, from the long black curls to the powerful voice.  
Except his voice fills every corner of the room and then some, whereas I usually go up into the rafters. Even from the back of the room, Lars, Spence, and I are standing there watching him in stunned silence.  
What's this song called again?  
Beyond the Wheel! That's it!  
And this one?  
I wanna say… Head Injury. Now that I think about it, this sounds like something I would've sang with Anthrax.  
I don't know this one too well, although it does remind me of Bauhaus a little bit with Matt's drumming.  
And last but not least, we have this one.  
This one…  
Flower! That's it! It's about a girl.  
And I feel a tap on my right shoulder, and I turn to find myself face to face with little Lupe, with her hoop earrings and her fitted black top with a low neckline.  
“Hey,” I greet her, “what're you doing here?”  
She gestures for me to come closer, and when I do, she steps away into a corridor near the entrance. She wants me to follow her somewhere, somewhere inside the venue.


	37. (caught with your pants down)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He didn't walk up with that ‘how you doin'?’  
(When he came in the room)  
He said there's a lot of girls I can do with,  
(But I can't without you)  
I knew him forever in a minute,  
(That summer night in June)  
and papa says he got malo in him,  
he got me feelin' like Havana.”  
-”Havana”, Camila Cabello

“Lupe? Lupe!”  
I follow her out of the dispersing bustle of the main floor into the hallway. The last thing I hear before leaving the room is Chris yelling out “thank you all!” and that's when I know the show's over. Sometimes just a few songs is enough, gentlemen.  
Meanwhile, I have my eye on her luxurious black hair as it flows back from her head. I weave through some people but I never lose track of her.  
At one point, before reaching a flight of stairs, she glances back at me with a glimmer in her eyes and a big beaming grin upon her face.  
“Come on, Joey!” she calls to me.  
“I'm coming! I'm coming!”  
But once I'm a foot from her, she dodges for the stairs, which gets me to follow after her even more. Gonna make me chase her, I see.  
She sprints up the narrow flight of stairs and I'm right behind her every step of the way, all the way to the top.  
Lupe turns the corner up above me, and I follow suit.  
“Where are you going?” I call out to her, out of breath. She keeps going to the very end, where she stops right in front of the last door there. She raises one finger to beckon me closer.  
“Take off your jacket,” she orders.  
“Your wish is my command.” I strip off my jacket before heading down the hall towards her. I have it over my shoulder once I stop in the doorway. The room is small, with a little soft looking olive colored love seat with the arm facing the tiny window facing out to the city lights. There's a faint smell of incense in here, like someone burned a stick in here hours ago and kept the door closed. I watch her peel off her blouse and then take a seat on her hip on that little love seat.  
“Close the door,” she tells me, stretching her legs and taking out her left earring.  
“Alright—” I step inside, shut the door behind me, and turn the lock on the knob. I then drop my jacket on the floor as she takes out her other earring; she puts both of them into her jeans pocket before giving her hair a nice flip with her free hand.  
“Come and get me, Joey baby—” she begs in a husky voice: she sticks out her tongue as she lays down on her back. I take off my shirt and lunge for her.  
I'm right over her with my right hand on the edge of the cushion and my left on the back of the love seat. I let my hair dangle down over her chest and her shoulders. The arrowhead pendant, which I have had around my neck since Lars and I came back to Oswego from New Orleans, hangs down over her face. Her tongue runs over the edge of her teeth.  
“Is that foreshadowing something?” she teases me.  
“It just might be, baby girl,” I whisper to her, running my tongue along my bottom lip. But I clutch onto it so as to keep it out of her face as I'm going down on her. I'm on top of her, kissing her neck and her chest, and fondling the straps of her bra. I'm about to reach underneath her when I feel the hooks at the front. I reach under myself to take it off.  
I lift myself off of her to look at her bare tits. They're lush and perky like a ripe pair of melons, and they're kissed with that smooth light brown.  
“Go ahead,” she beckons me. “Touch me.”  
I've got both index fingers raised and I make little circles around her nipples. I lean over her right one for a little kiss right underneath the darkest bit of skin and she flinches beneath me. I press my lips to the bit of skin in between them for a few more little kisses before moving onto her left. She groans in her throat and she's breathing heavy. I let my knee sink in between her thighs so she can feel my own right on top of her crotch.  
I feel her gripping onto the roots of my hair on the side of my head. She gives me a tug and I lift my head from her skin for a little yelp out.  
I flash her a wide eyed glance with my mouth gaping open like I'm the male version of Medusa.  
“Ah, you want it a little rough, don't ya?” I tease her.  
“Por favore—” she whispers to me, giving my hair another tug. She tugs again and I push my head against the back of the love seat. I feel her other hand grip onto my shoulder.  
And then I realize she's pushing me down onto the cushions and trading places with me. I roll over onto my back. I'm underneath her.  
Her black curls fall onto my chest for a moment before she lifts herself into an upright position to take off her bra all of the way. She lays it over the top of the couch right above my head, and then she unbuttons her pants.  
And then she unbuttons my pants.  
I watch her fingers creep under the band of my underwear.  
She's touching me.  
She's tugging my pants down more so she can better touch me.  
Oh.  
She keeps tugging them down towards the middle of my thighs so I've got my pants down.  
She's got my cock out in the open. She's stroking me with those gentle fingers.  
Every gentle touch. Every delicate sensation on my skin is enough to drive me absolutely crazy.  
I gasp as she touches closer to my hips. I watch her tongue slither out of her mouth as she brings herself closer to my head.  
I nibble on my bottom lip at the sight of her lips coming closer to me.  
“Are you gonna—”  
I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the arm of the love seat as she puts her lips around my head. She's going down, closer and closer to me, and she's got a firm hold on me. Her tongue runs along my skin. I feel my heart hammering in my chest.  
She's going down on me again. Oh, man.  
I feel myself getting hard at the smoothness of her lips. I was already wanting her when I chased after her back in the hallway, but fuck. This is it.  
This is where Lupe and I come together.  
That's it. Whatever if she's a stripper. Out of all the girls I've encountered, she's the best. Probably because she's a stripper. She's just too damn good at this. She's going so far down!  
I'm rising. I'm going higher and higher with the feeling. I've got my head tilted back and my hair all behind me. Every touch of her lips. Every stroke of her tongue. Every last bit of it.  
And then she sinks her teeth right square in the dick.  
I let out a sharp yell but I don't think anyone heard me. It's too noisy downstairs and there's too much rain falling outside.  
She lifts her mouth off of me with a low groan and then she climbs on top of me with her legs straddling either side of me.  
But she doesn't get very far once I recognize the pearly white figure on the side of the room. She sees it, too, because she gasps and throws herself off of me. I scramble back towards the arm of the couch when the filmy streaks of the white cloak surrounding her body take shape. I push up against the back of the love seat with my dick still out; Lupe meanwhile is on her back with her arms covering her chest.  
“Mrs. Snow!” I exclaim, my voice trembling. “What're you—”  
“What the—who the fuck is she?” Lupe demands, covering her chest.  
“She's a ghost who lives with me and always wants to rip my dick off every time I even so much as think of whacking off. And now she's probably gonna give me shit for doing it with you!”  
Mrs. Snow floats towards the couch with her fingers outstretched for me. A wave of cold spreads over me like a heavy wet blanket. I yank up my pants to hide from her, but it's too late. She's already looming over me, ready to do… something to me. I have no idea what she's going to do to me. I grimace and snap my eyes shut.  
“Remember the last, Joseph,” she whispers into my face, her voice as light as the first wisps of lake effect fog. I open my eyes in time to watch her fade away into the darkness. Breathing heavy, I glance over at Lupe on the other side of the love seat, her hands gripped onto the waist band of her jeans.  
“The last what?” she asks me in a hushed voice, hitching up her pants and then pushing her hair back from her face.  
“Beats me,” I confess to her, swallowing: my mouth is dry. On top of this, the nice feeling is gone now. But Lupe did the best, though. She reaches over to the top of the couch for her bra.  
“We should probably go,” she quips at me.  
“Yeah, I think we should, too. That was hot, though.”  
“Oh, yes.” She winks at me as she slips the straps over her bra and fastens it again. “Mr. Stallion.”  
“That's me, alright.” I return the favor with a wink back at her.


	38. (marcia and some spiders)

Lupe and I are hurrying back down the corridor to the stairwell. The noise has died down a great deal downstairs but I'm still trying to figure that whole thing out back there on Mrs. Snow's part. “Remember the last.” I'm afraid I don't remember because I don't even know what the hell she's talking about.  
And she called me by my full name, too. I have never heard her refer to me as Joseph before.  
Eh, I don't know. And I'm too preoccupied with leading Lupe back downstairs to the main floor of the bar in order to give it any more thought.  
Lars, Barney, Billy, and Spence are awaiting me on the other side of the room, near a heavy black curtain. Lupe meanwhile ducks away from me and towards the bar.  
Spence shows me a mischievous grin as I'm coming closer to them.  
“Who's that little lady?” he asks me.  
“That was—Lupe, wasn't it?” Lars fills in.  
“Lupe!” the three of them gawk all together.  
“She's a stripper,” I tell them, out of breath. “It's—It's nothing.”  
“A stripper with a thing for you,” Lars cracks.  
“Oh, hush—besides, you're the one who Lizzy's going all bat shit crazy for.” I return to the three of them and the eager expression on each of their faces. “Really, you fellas should'a seen the two of them last week when we were over at Black Orchid.”  
He nibbles on his bottom lip while his face turns as red as a cherry tomato.  
“A man named baby kangaroo!” I recognize Dominique's voice call out from behind the curtain.  
“Baby kangaroo?” Billy chuckles at that.  
“Yeah! Man named baby kangaroo! Come back here!”  
“Oh, that's me!” I declare, and then gesture for them to follow me behind the black curtain.  
We're met with a narrow area secluded from the rest of the place. I don't remember this part here, with the green lamps and the matching couch pressed up against the wall, and the big buffet table on the other side of the room with a bunch of food served out for us. Dominique, Nancy, Chris, and Matt are all seated on the couch, while Hiro is pouring himself a glass of water and Kim is cracking open a beer over by the table.  
“This can't be the dressing room,” I mutter aloud.  
“This is our dressing room,” Matt assures me. “The actual ones around the other side of the place are closed off.”  
“Why's that?”  
He shakes his head. “No idea. But anyways—help yourselves to our comida du jour.” He gestures towards Kim, Hiro, and the table on the other side of the room.  
“Comida du jour?” Dominique echoes with a giggle. “One's Spanish, one's French, babe.”  
“It's Spench,” Spence jokes, and we all burst out laughing. I make my way over to the table for a couple of those little fingerling crustini sandwiches. Hiro tosses his black hair back before taking a big drink of water.  
“Badass show you guys put on,” I tell him.  
“Thanks, man,” Kim replies, extending a hand for me to partake in a high five.  
“Yeah, really,” Hiro follows up once he puts down the water bottle.  
“We should hear you sing some time.”  
I shrug at them.  
“I dunno 'bout that,” I confess, picking up two crustinis with a bit of smooth white cheese and some sliced turkey and ham.  
“Also, help yourself to those,” Kim insists as Spence strides up behind me for a couple for himself.  
“Yeah, there's a whole lot more where those came from,” Hiro adds, taking another drink of water. Spence and I make a toast with each other with our little bite sized sandwiches before popping them into our mouths at the same time. The cheese is soft and melty, like maybe it's Brie. The turkey and the ham meanwhile taste fresh out of the deli.  
We double back to the couch to meet up with the four of them as well as Lars. I offer him one and he waves it off.  
“Are you sure?” I ask him.  
“Yeah. I'll wait for the next batch.” He winks at me and I take it back for myself. Chris puts his arm around Nancy and she leans over into his chest. There's a part of me that wishes I had more time with Lupe but what was I to do when Mrs. Snow was right there looming before us? The memory of her looming before me reminds me of the first time I saw her and she looked as though she was about to mutilate the family jewels. There was no way I would go through with that again.  
I sigh through my nose and finish the first crustini before eating the one I had offered to Lars.  
“So I got a call from Angeline,” Dominique begins, “Angeline Belotti, the woman I shadowed over at the New York Times.”  
“Yeah?” Matt follows along.  
“She told me she'll be going out to Seattle in the next two weeks so we can do some dual reporting together on the uptick in cybernetic technology. I'm taking it to the next level, babe.”  
“Oh, that's fantastic!” Matt puts his arm around her and kisses the side of her head.  
“She also said she'll be stopping on the way through Syracuse, Oswego, and Rochester,” she adds, turning to me, Spence, Barney, and Billy, “because I guess there's a bit of resistance against it all right now with the town councils, like they don't want any of the advancements we have in Seattle there. They all keep voting against it.”  
The four of us glance at one another, and I feel my heart sink. I know it's run by Maxwell Industries, and I can only assume what's happening with Brick and Maya right now has something to do with that company. They do have his name after all. Her, I have no idea about but I can't but help feel a link here.  
“Hey!” Chris calls out from right next to me. We all turn to see Sonia's head poking out from the break in the curtains.  
“Sonia!” Lars declares, his face flushing.  
“Hey, you,” I follow up in a flat tone of voice, popping the crustini in my mouth. Marcia pokes her head from in between the curtains, right underneath her.  
“And Marcia,” Lars follows up.  
“And Miss Marcia,” I add to it with my mouth full.  
“What are you ladies doing here?” Matt asks them.  
“We need to talk to you guys,” Sonia states to us.  
“The two of us?” I ask her, my mouth still full as I'm gesturing to Lars and me both.  
“Yes. In private.”  
I swallow and we glance at one another: Lars has his eyebrows raised and his eyes riddled with a look of seriousness.  
“'Scuse us,” I tell all of them behind us, and the two of us lunge for the Bennett sisters behind the curtain. They duck back to let us out of the dressing room and onto the stretch of floor in between the bar and the stage. Marcia grins at me.  
“Hey,” she greets me in a soft voice, reaching for my forearm.  
“Hi,” I return the favor with a little smile. It's all I can do for her.  
“What's going on?” Lars asks them, rubbing his hands together at a slow pensive pace.  
“Maya showed up to the upholstery shop,” Sonia informs us, “totally out of the blue and speaking some weird language.”  
“Weird language?” Lars echoes, keeping his hands pressed together before his chest.  
“What'd it sound like?” is all I can think of.  
“It sounded—backwards,” Marcia fills in, tugging down her blouse over her full hips.  
“Backwards,” we say at the same time.  
“At least that's what we think it was,” Sonia continues, brushing a ringlet of hair behind her ear. “She also said something about how Spence and Joey are both gonna royally fuck something up soon enough.”  
“Me?” I'm stunned by that.  
“Yeah. But we didn't believe her, though, especially since you're the one who found her.”  
“But she said it out of anger, though,” Marcia points out, “like she sounded pissed when she said it.” She frowns at the two of us. “Where is Spence?”  
“He's in there,” Lars gestures back to the curtains behind us.  
“I need another word with you, too,” Sonia curtly says, waving a finger into his face and he recoils back at the sight of it before him. She weaves around him and he follows her back, which in turn leaves me alone with Marcia. She shows a little smile, her cheekbones filling out as a result.  
“So how are you?” she begins in a soft voice.  
“I'm doing alright. Kinda worried about my friend Brick, but I think he'll be okay, though.”  
“That's good. It's good to remain positive to ensure he has a quick recovery.”  
She touches the upper part of my arm even though I have my jacket on.  
“You know, sometimes I'll catch myself thinking about you,” she admits to me, her gaze dropping off to her hand on me.  
“Do you now?”  
“I do. Like I think about—” She lifts her gaze to my face. “—those big puppy dog brown eyes, and those soft lips, and that beautiful hair.”  
I swallow and I feel the butterflies well up inside my stomach.  
“Marcia, I'm—” I almost choke on my own spit trying to speak to her. “I'm not gonna lie to you—I'm a little uncomfortable here.”  
She purses her lips and shakes her head.  
“Uncomfortable. Come on now. We're in a bar after a show. It's only natural for us to—you know.”  
“No, I don't.”  
She runs her tongue along her bottom lip. She keeps her hand on my shoulder as she moves in closer to me. Her chest is right up against mine while her belly is pressed against my own. I feel a little sick. And I feel a little bad for resisting her, but there's no denying how I feel. I'm uncomfortable.  
But she's lifting her other hand onto the side of my neck and I swear she's about to kiss me, leaning in closer to me when I hear Lupe yell out on the other side of the room. We turn to look at some of the people at the bar lunging back from the bar itself. I take a closer look to find those spiders, those same gigantic black spiders the size of my hand I saw in Ellen's apartment down in New Orleans, scurrying along the top of the bar and down the front. They're going into people's drinks and the ashtrays, and over the bar stools.  
“Oh my God,” Marcia gasps, her face turning as white as a sheet.  
“God damn,” I blurt out in a hushed voice.  
“Alright, everyone tuck your pants into your socks!” the bartender shouts. I watch Lupe throw her jacket over her before ducking out the front door and out to the rain. Lars, Spence, Billy, and Barney all file out from behind the curtain with looks of concern upon their faces.  
“The fuck's going on?” Barney wonders aloud.  
“Spiders,” I tell him, and Marcia jerks her hand back from me like she got burned; “huge ones, might I add.”  
“Holy shit!” Lars declares.  
“Well there's no way we're getting out that way now,” Spence points out as the spiders make their way upon the floor. They're crawling all over the tiles and upon the walls. Then a couple scurry our way.  
“Back door, back door, back door!” I shout, and we run back to the dressing room. The six of them flash us startled looks as we return to the area.  
“What's wrong?” Nancy demands.  
“Spider infestation,” I tell her, scooping up some more crustinis, “massive ones, might I add.”  
“Oh, Jesus!”  
We all scramble to pick up the rest of the food before they get to it. I lead the way out of the area, across the stage and towards the emergency exit behind the platform which held up Matt's drum kit. I'm running blind through the rain with my hands full of crustini sandwiches, but I do remember where Lars had parked.  
“OKAY EVERYONE FOLLOW JOEY!” I hear him bellow behind me.  
I run down the alleyway to the sidewalk. I shove my mouth full of two sandwiches and then tuck the other two under my jacket to keep them from getting wet. My hair mattes to my forehead with every step, but by the light of the neon sign, I recognize the hydrogen car parked at the curb. Indeed, once I reach the car, I hear a low hum emerging from the base board. I fling open the door and collapse into the passenger seat.  
Once the door is closed and my mouth is absolutely stuffed full of seared sourdough bread, Brie cheese, turkey, and ham, I push my bangs out of my eyes. I peer out the window to find Barney and Billy running towards the car; the former reaches the back door behind me first and dives into the seat on the opposite side. Billy follows suit into the middle suit.  
Not even before he can close the door, Spence takes his place right behind me.  
Meanwhile, Lars rounds the front of the car: through the streaks of rain on the windshield, I can see his hair is already a matted mess. He opens the driver's side door, and throws himself into the seat, and yanks the door shut. Breathing hard, he shoves his hair back from his face: but in the pink light from the neon sign, I can still see a rather thick tendril stuck to the side of his face.  
“Alright, is everybody in?” he asks us, peering over his shoulder. “Nancy, Dominique, and the guys all have their gear together and they were going to leave soon anyways. So, we cool here?”  
“Yeff,” I still have my mouth full.  
“Good man, not letting food go to waste,” Spence notes, patting my shoulder. “She's in Rochester, Sonia said?”  
“Yeah—” I choke out upon swallowing. Lars shakes his head and sets his hand on the top of the steering wheel.  
“Honestly, if Maya's back in Oswego, I'm gonna freak,” he confesses, and then I remember wormholes don't close all the way. That's probably how the spiders got here. That's my guess, anyway.  
“You're gonna freak?” Barney demands, stunned. “It's our neck of the woods, dude! If it was San Francisco or Copenhagen, I'd definitely be worried because we could lose her, but this is Nowhere, USA we're talking about.”  
“What should we do, Joe?” Billy asks me, gripping onto the side of my seat; I turn my head for a better look at him and also Lars, who has his hand on the wheel. “You're our captain. What do you think we should do?”  
I really have no idea what to do or where to go from here. But after what happened with Marcia back there in the dressing rooms, I think it's best we begin from the top. If Maya is back in Oswego, and since Brick is home, we should probably check on him and make sure nothing too extravagant is going on.  
“I say we get our asses back to Oswego,” I tell them. “If she's there—and I have faith that she is, and I have a ton of hope for Brick, but—it's hard. You know? So—we've got the car started already. Let's bounce.”


	39. (across the waters)

November 5, 1988. Rochester, New York.  
We're back here, and I don't know if Marcia and Sonia are back yet, so as far as I know their shop is locked and Maya is locked in there. Lars takes the first exit leading us towards their upholstery shop and I'm so nervous that I can hardly keep the crustini sandwiches down all the way. I swallow as we reach the street it's on: I recognize the front stairs leading up to Marcia and Sonia's apartment. The rain is still falling down hard upon the roof over our heads, so hard that I'm amazed I can even hear Spence's voice.  
“I say the three of us back here go in there to check it out,” he volunteers.  
“Just you guys?” I ask him, peering into the rear view mirror.  
“Yeah, man,” Billy offers. “She's lived with us for a while. We know how to put a handle on her.”  
We pull up to the curb before the shop, which, to my surprise, is bright lit, even though Marcia and Sonia are still back around Buffalo as far as I know. Lars then yanks on the lever between us. He peers over his shoulder, his wet hair still clinging to the sides of his face and neck.  
“Have at it, gentlemen,” he encourages them. Spence climbs out first, followed by Barney and Billy. The door shuts behind them and we watch them bow their heads against the rain as they walk up to the front door.  
“Really hope she hasn't done anything horrific in there,” I wonder aloud.  
“I doubt it,” he says in a soft voice. “Maya is a writer, and she is a pacifist as a result. She doesn't believe that war or violence or anything like that is the answer. Her mantra is if you want to fight for something, you use your words and your heart. She's a profound writer that way.”  
I turn to the sight of him with his forearm on the top of the steering wheel.  
“I don't understand, Lars. Why didn't you tell me all of this before?”  
“Well—the answer, while twofold, is very simple, actually. Part of it comes from the fact that, like you, I am still trying to figure her out. She fell off the radar for as long as she did and I had my work cut out for me. The other side of it is—and this is the not so simple part, now that I think about it. I haven't really had anyone to speak to about it.”  
“Well, yeah, you've told me that before but it's still—it's still—”  
“Hard to swallow?”  
“Eh—yes, actually.”  
“Well, Joey—” He smiles and sticks the tip of his tongue into the corner of his mouth. “Man, I should've known.”  
“Should've known what?”  
“How eager you are. Like I remember hearing about you the first time, and how quick you learned all the songs Anthrax brought up to you when you guys were recording your first album together. You are what is known as a 'sponge,' in that like a kitchen sponge, you absorb things rather quickly. That is a talent so many do not have because young children are primarily known for being sponges. My wife, meanwhile—as much as I don't want to say this—is a 'stone', blocking anything new and as a result it goes in one ear and out the other. Sponges drink the water, stones let it pass them by.”  
I still have that sentiment Maya wrote in that first edition of her zine firmly imprinted on my mind. Maybe this is what she meant by that: she wants to know things like how I wish to know more. She doesn't want to drown because she doesn't want to lose that ability, that ability so reminiscent of being a young child and being so open. Of course. It makes sense.  
I stare back out the window to the upholstery shop, at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling on the inside.  
Surely, she's got to be in there.  
“Joey, when you get the chance,” Lars starts again, still in a soft voice, “look out my window.”  
I turn my head to find him peering out his. I follow his gaze to across the street.  
“Bunch of buildings?”  
“Past that.”  
I gaze beyond the little places across the street to the stretch of darkness that is Lake Ontario. Embedded in the lake effect fog is a single line of blue and green neon lights, all of them hovering over the water. Despite the rain, they're bright, as bright as they were in the University District of Seattle. The sight of them is enough to make me shiver.  
“Headed your way,” he says in a near whisper, a tone of voice so soft, I have to lean closer to him to hear him. “Headed your way from across the waters.”  
“Or so they think,” I answer, my face within a couple of inches from his ear. “So they wish.”  
He slowly turns his head to look at me right in the eye. I swallow at the sight of his green eyes piercing into the fabric of my very being. I then pull my head back from him and straighten myself out. His gaze never wavers as I sink back into the seat.  
“By the way—you heard this from me, too,” he starts again, this time in a louder voice, “I'm gonna tell you this right now—what happened to Brick was no accident.”  
“How so?”  
“Think about it. You find something huge about his family that you didn't know about before—shortly thereafter, he gets badly hurt, so much that he ends up in the hospital and Spencer has to give him a bunch of his blood. Maxwell Industries—his last name is Maxwell. Does this make any kind of sense to you?”  
“Yeah, and also no.”  
“What's hanging you up then?”  
“Because I know Brick. He's not involved in any conspiracy or anything like that. That's ridiculous.”  
“Oh? Oh, you think it's ridiculous? Was his family well off?”  
“Yeah, okay, they were. Still are. Growing up, they were the robust immigrant family from Quebec, but as far as—something like that? Having a huge company that wants to pervade everything? Meh. I don't see it. I don't buy it.”  
“From Quebec, you said?”  
“Yeah. I have so many memories of going over to his house on the weekends so we could play hockey and his parents always threw French phrases at me. We'd play out in the backyard, where they had this big flower garden on the side of the yard, and—” The memory's coming back to me now. “—oh God, one time I remember we were messing around with our hockey sticks and we were getting a little too close to the begonias, and his mom opened the kitchen window and she was like 'sacre bleu! You keeds! Geet ze 'ell out of zere!'” That gets a laugh out of him.  
“Do you remember what his parents did? Like for work?”  
“I don't,” I confess. “All I know is they had enough with them to move down from… Sherbrooke, I think it was called, over to—literally, of all places in upstate New York—Oswego. I remember they always had something to eat, and some things just never change.”  
“Right? By the way, do you still—have—” He gestures to my jacket and take out the two little crustini sandwiches I had slipped into the interior. He takes them both with both of his index fingers and thumbs.  
“Never got the second batch.” He's about to pop one into his mouth when he hesitates.  
“You said—her mother is my landlady, right?” he asks me, reluctant. “My landlady down in New Orleans.”  
“Candace's mother is your landlady,” I correct him. “Pertaining to Maya, I have no idea.”  
He pauses again, the sandwiches in his fingers, and a glimmer in his eye. Suddenly I'm feeling the arrowhead pendant on the inside of my shirt.  
“Don't even think about it,” I tell him off.  
“Let's pay her a little visit, shall we?” he follows up as soon as the words leave my lips.  
“Dammit.”  
“What? Just a little visit in the morning. We can have tea.”  
“I don't want tea.”  
“The shit you say.”  
He squints his eyes at me.  
“You don't wanna go back to New Orleans, don't you.”  
“Not right now. Not with a raging hurricane down there right now, no.”  
“I'm sure the storm has long passed, Joey. The sole thing you would perhaps worry about down there the most is a bit of a flood and getting your pants wet.”  
“Alright, fine. As long as it gets me back into the restaurant to perform again. I think they like my singing.”  
He gapes at me.  
“Hang on, hang on, that was you?”  
“Well, who else would it be?”  
“True. Anyways, tomorrow morning, we shall take the next wormhole down to the French Quarter. But until then, I am bunking with Marcia and Sonia right around the corner. You can join us if you would like, Joey.”  
“No, thanks. I'll—sleep in my own bed tonight.”  
“Alright. Oh, right, right, I gotta take the three of them home, too—speaking of which, here they come—”  
He pops the one in his right hand into his mouth as the back door behind me swings open. Billy and Barney pile in first, followed by Spence.  
“Well?” I ask them.  
“Well what?” Barney retorts.  
“She's not here,” Spence replies.  
“Are you shitting me?” Lars demands with his mouth full.  
“Nope. Place is pristine, too, like she cleaned everything and straightened everything out.”  
“Just like how she did with my apartment…” I mutter under my breath.  
“It was weird, too. Walking in there and seeing all the tulles and spools neat and trimmed nicely. Even the threads on the loom in the back were wiped clean. But we searched for her, though. We finally got out of there because the three of us were feeling the heebie jeebies from it being so clean and quiet in there.”  
I nibble on my bottom lip as Lars gazes on at me with the other crustini in his fingers.  
“Taking you guys home,” he says, pushing down the parking lever.


	40. (back at lars' place)

November 6, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
It's well after midnight by the time Lars brings us home, and at this point, some of the rain has morphed into snow. He bounds up to the driveway of my apartment complex and the headlights are showing big fat snowflakes amongst the drops of rain.  
“Shit, man, I dunno if I can make it back to Rochester,” Lars confesses as he pulls up the front of the complex.  
“Yeah, that road gets pretty scary when it snows,” Spence points out, “especially when we start getting the lake effect going.”  
“Why don't you stay with Joe for the night, man?” Barney suggests.  
“I am not doing that again,” he scoffs. “Between the ghosts and Joey kicking me in the back of the head, no way.”  
As I take off the seat belt, I gesture into the backseat.  
“Stay with Barney and Billy,” I tell him.  
“With Barney and Billy?”  
“Yeah. It's gonna get bad, dude.”  
“We'll get a fire going,” Billy assures him.  
“Yeah, and that bed's got clean sheets on it,” Barney adds.  
“Trust us, man, it's gonna get bad,” I continue, not realizing that I raised my eyebrows at Lars. I lower them and brush my bangs out of my face.  
“Alright. I'll drop you off, Spence, and then I will—go to you guys' place, and I'll call Marcia and Sonia and tell them what's up. And then Joey and I will—go on a mission in the morning.”  
He flashes me a wink and that's when I climb out into the frigid bitter cold. I close the door and, using the light from the porchlights and careful not to slip and fall on my ass, I make my way to my apartment. I feel the snow sticking to my already wet hair and I have a chill running down the sides of my head, down my neck, and all the way down my spine.  
I reach into my jacket pocket for my key and unlock the front door. I gasp once I step into my place.  
It's chilly in here, but dry.  
I shut the door behind me and round the couch to turn on the lamp. Golden light washes over me and without turning my head, I notice the big snowflakes clinging to my hair. I reach up to touch the sides of my head. Snow. Covered in snow. Already fully covered in snow.  
“Mrs. Snow?” a girl's voice says from behind me. Careful not to make the snow touch my already cold face and neck, I slowly turn around to find Vera floating in from the hall. Her dark hollow eyes follow me even though I'm not moving.  
“No, just—just me. Joey.” The cold is setting in and her being there is adding to it.  
“Where's Mrs. Snow?” she asks me in a light, floaty voice.  
“I—I—I dunno.”  
She hangs there, and unbeknownst to her I am practically freezing my balls off here. She breathes out a heavy sigh before drifting away into fine wisps, and then into nothing. I'm still shivering but the cold isn't as intense anymore. Shuddering, I turn off the lamp and make my way down the hall to the thermostat.  
I turn up the heat and duck into the bathroom for a shake of my head in the shower. The snow falls off of my hair into the floor of the shower: some of it hits me in the face but I'm getting it off of me with each shake. My jacket meanwhile is soaking wet and so once I straighten myself upright, I peel it right off and sling it over the curtain bar. I set my bath towel over my hair to dry off my hair as best as I can before taking off my shirt and hanging the towel back up. I then double back into my bedroom and I hang my shirt, which is still dry, up in the closet, and then I trade my pants for my pajama bottoms. My hair is still pretty wet, but at least it's not dripping anymore.  
I take off the arrowhead pendant and lay it on the nightstand next to my copy of Tropic of Capricorn. I crawl into bed, under the covers and with my head firmly pressed against the pillow. I reach up to turn off the lamp and I'm laying there in darkness, trying to get warm.  
My feet are cold, like freezing. I lift my head in time to see Nerissa floating over the foot of the bed towards me. If she was a real live girl, I would let her under the covers with me. But her presence is only worsening the cold feeling around me.  
“Nerissa,” I sputter out the words, “—Nerissa, I'm not really in the mood, baby doll.”  
“Nonsense, lush boy,” she whispers to me, stroking the top of my thigh with two fingers.  
“Nerissa, I'm—I'm freezing!”  
She floats over my chest and into my face. Her cold lips graze mine, as light as two feathers. She then floats over me so I'm met with her neck and shoulders, and then her chest. I'm absolutely freezing, even under the covers. I'm usually warm by now, but between my wet hair and Nerissa hanging over me with her chest right in my face, I am shuddering even in my bed. And yet, even with the wash of cold over me, I still manage to fall asleep.  
I still manage to drift off into the wake of a dream where I'm surrounded by big black circles. Gaping black holes, some of them as large as my head. There must be thousands of them, all of them hanging around my head and my shoulders as if they're suspended from wires.  
Wait a minute, they are suspended from wires. They're taking the gloss and the smooth texture of glass. I'm surrounded by black glass, pitch black glass hanging down from the ceiling. Some of it's rough and with the texture of stone. Some of it is smooth, perfectly smooth. Some of it gives me the creeps. Some of it floats around my head like a series of stars.  
One of the shiny pieces of glass floats into my face and I can see myself. But my reflection is not showing my own face. Rather, it's taking the shape of Lars' full face, followed by his button nose and his little lips. My brown irises are changing color to that fresh green.  
I'm turning into Lars. I'm turning into Lars and there's nothing I can do about it.  
I'm jarred awake by the sight of it. I gaze in front of me to the dark ceiling. I hear the winds outside raging and the snow pummeling the roof.  
At least I'm warm now. It's dark and I have no idea what's the time. I swear I see something moving around on the ceiling overhead.  
Could just be my tired eyes getting to me. Or maybe not.  
I make out the shape of tattered cloth up there on the ceiling. I'm probably hallucinating, but I also can't be too sure of it. All I can do is close my eyes again and pull the blanket up over my head.  
And then I hear something tapping on the window. But I don't want to look.  
I nestle the side of my head into the pillow with the blankets over me. Even over the snow, I can hear the tapping. But I don't want to look, even as it moves away from the window and onto the wall over my head.  
But I still lay there, relaxing every inch of myself and having faith in the dream catcher over my head. Then the edge of the dream catcher scrapes against the wall.  
And that's when I pull the blankets over my head. I'm safe in here. I'll keep this over my head all night if I have to.  
I live with ghosts and they have scared me a few times in the past, but I don't ever recall either of them freaking me out like this.  
By some miracle, I fall asleep again, this time into a dreamless sleep.  
And I awake to pure white morning light from the snow outside.  
Time to walk up to the House of Grey, grab Lars, and go to New Orleans.  
As I'm getting out of bed, I find my hair is still quite damp from the snow last night and it sends chills over my skin. I get dressed with haste, slipping on a sweatshirt, my pinky ring, my blue and white scarf, my big black overcoat, and my big black leather boots with the chains on them in the process. Then I remember my gloves are still in the pockets of my leather jacket and, once I run my fingers through my hair to sort of brush it, I make my way across the hall for them. The last thing I do before leaving is swipe the pendant from my nightstand, which is on top of the nightstand itself and not my book. There was something in my room last night, but I'm too focused on fetching Lars to crawl our way back down to the French Quarter.  
About a half a foot of snow fell last night and there are still little flurries falling over me. The street, which has already been plowed, is empty and silent. And it's here I'm glad Lars spent the night with the Greys instead of braving it back to Rochester.  
These are cheap ass boots I found at Goodwill for about five bucks, but they do the trick as I'm making my way up the walkway to the front door of the House of Grey. The door itself swings open and Lars bustles out of the house, still tugging on his coat.  
“You got the pendant?” he asks me in a broken voice.  
I reach into my coat pocket for the arrowhead. He shuts the door behind him.  
“Have at it.”  
I make the cross shape in mid air and the wormhole opens. I focus on the French Quarter as I'm crawling inside the darkness with the snow flurries on my tail.  
I land on something hard and smelling of stone and metal. Not Lars' apartment.  
I lift my head to find us on the roof of some building somewhere. Lars himself meanwhile sits upright over on the corner next to me.  
“Where the fuck are we?” he demands, rubbing his eye.  
I pick myself off the stone and the cold metal to find a low brick wall above my head. I peer over the wall and I see we're atop an apartment building down the street from his. I point to the right.  
“What're you pointing at?” he asks, climbing up onto his feet.  
“Your apartment building.”  
“Well, what are we doing here then?”  
“I just focused on the French Quarter.”  
“Well, there's your problem! You only brought us to the French Quarter and not my actual apartment building! Now the big question—”  
“How do we get down from here?” I fill in for him.  
“Exactly.”  
“Well—surely there's a fire escape.”  
We peek over the edge to the street below and there is indeed a fire escape, but not one I would have expected to see in New York City for example. The steps of the first ladder themselves are about a foot down from the edge of the brick wall; beneath them is a landing, followed by a set of stairs that appear to be retracted up by a lever. Meanwhile, the top of the first ladder is met with a gray metal tube, like whoever is climbing off the roof is supposed to slide down there and somehow hope that they'll reach the top of the ladder without falling onto the next landing.  
Lars leads me over to the tube, to the step ladder on the wall leading inside of the tube, and we find there's a fire pole in there instead.  
So that clears up that. He peeks over the edge of the wall down the tube.  
“It's definitely a safe way down—like we can climb over and slide down this pole here,” he informs me, “and then put out feet on the top of the ladder, but there appears to be something blocking it.” He stops, and then slowly turns his head to me.  
“What're you looking at me like that?” I demand from him.  
“Because you've got those boots.”  
“You've got boots, too.”  
“Yeah, but these are more for keeping my feet warm, not for pushing something out of the way. On top of this, you're also skinnier than me.”  
I fetch up a sigh and climb up the little step ladder onto the fire pole, which is out from the side of the ladder. I reach over onto the pole, turn myself around and slide down the pole like a fireman. I'm down inside of the tube and I soon reach the bottom, which is the top of the next ladder. I glance up the tube to Lars' head poking out from over the wall.  
“There's nothing here,” I confess.  
“Really?”  
“Nope. Just a pole and the next ladder. Here, let me get down first and then you can follow me.”  
But as I'm glancing down the ladder, I'm finding a series of gears connected by belts attached to the bottom of the tube. No, there's something here, just not inside of the tube. But I climb down to let him make his way down towards me.  
I reach the first landing and the break in the floor to let down the next row of ladder steps. I'm about to figure out the gears there when Lars must have taken a misstep on the ladder because he falls on the landing and the gears in front of me crack. I lunge back to the rail in order to keep myself from falling  
The ladder falls out towards the next one down, and the one down there cracks open, followed by the next one, and the next one, and the last one, which clanks onto the pavement down below.  
I let out a low whistle while Lars peers up at me with his eyebrows raised and his mouth agape.  
“That was close,” he remarks.  
“You're telling me.”  
We make our down the ladders, all the way down to the bottom to the sidewalk and the street. I have no idea how to fix the ladders so we leave them as soon as Lars hops off the last ladder before me. We turn around in unison when we're met with the sight of Molly herself on the pavement before us with her arms folded over her chest and a thoughtful look upon her face.  
“Darling Molly,” Lars greets her. She clears her throat as she scans the both of us.  
“I hear the two of you have been wanting to know more about Maya.”  
I frown at her.  
“Where'd you hear that?”  
She doesn't reply; instead, she gestures for us to follow her back down the street to the apartment building. Once her back is turned, I face Lars and the befuddled look on his face.  
“Where did she hear that?” I ask him in a hushed voice.  
“I don't have any idea.”


	41. (tea for one too many)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy thanksgiving and happy birthday matt cameron 💜

November 6, 1988. New Orleans, Louisiana.  
Molly leads us into the apartment building, where it's dead silent on the inside. The whole front part of the place smells musty, like they had a little bit of flooding in here during the hurricane; I look to my right to find the whole restaurant and the bar closed up for the day. I turn my head to the left to the next room where I find the papers and things on the floor looking as though they were soaking wet at some point. The floor creaks underneath us and I can only think that that hurricane did a little more than drop a shitload of rain over New Orleans.  
We pass the first staircase and I shoot a fleeting glance up there to the landing, the sight of Lars' apartment door and the one right over us, Ellen's room. I flash back to the infestation of those banana slugs and then the giant spiders and my skin crawls at the very thought.  
She makes her way down the corridor to the second stairwell, which smells even more of must and mildew, and Lars and I follow her up the stairs to the first landing, and then the next one, and then the third floor. We stop right behind her as she unlocks the door. I glance over at Lars as he's fetching up a quiet sigh.  
The door opens and she stands off to the side to let us inside first. Where the halls out there smelled of must and wet wood, there's that overhanging aroma of black tea in there.  
“First things first, would either of you boys like a cup of tea?” she offers as she closes the door behind her.  
“Yes, please,” says Lars.  
“I'm more of a coffee drinker but I'll take one, though.”  
“Okay. Have a seat.”  
She ducks into the kitchen and I take a seat in the tiny desk chair in the corner, while Lars sinks down on the edge of the bed. He shifts his weight and the mattress creaks underneath his weight. The seat of the chair meanwhile is a little tight on my hips and my butt: I'm able to sit there but the bases of the arms hug my hips and I have to sit with my right leg crossed over the left which is barely comfortable. I hear a clanking of a metal pot being put on the stove in the next room followed by a ticking of the pilot light.  
Molly then returns to the room while combing her hair with her fingers.  
“I have a question for you first, though, Molly,” he begins, “how did you know we were wondering about Maya?”  
She clears her throat and rests her elbow on top of her dresser.  
“I heard your voices,” she answers.  
“Heard our voices,” he echoes.  
“Wormholes,” I point out, and he gasps.  
“Of course!”  
“Yeah. After the hurricane, I went downstairs to check to see the damage and there was indeed a lot of water in there but it wasn't as bad as I thought it to be. I went into the room across the hall from the restaurant and found this thin veil of like… plain lace hanging off of the wall. I went to pick it up 'cause I never seen it before, and I found a tiny black hole there that didn't look to go anywhere.”  
“How tiny?” He knits his eyebrows together.  
“About the size of a nickel. And then I heard two girls talking to each other, but they sounded like they came from another part of the country. Y'know they were lacking that southern accent so I figured that hole must go somewhere.”  
“Other part of the country…” I follow along, and I turn my head to Lars again. “Marcia and Sonia, probably.”  
“Yeah, I heard one of 'em call the other Sonia.”  
“It was up against the wall, you said?” Lars asks her.  
“Yeah. Like pressed against the wall, like someone drilled a hole there.”  
He and I glance at one another.  
“So not only do they not close all the way,” he says in a soft voice, “but they move on top of this. So you heard us? When?”  
“Just last night. I could barely hear either of you at first because there was a lot of noise surrounding you—”  
“It was raining and we were in a car,” I point out.  
“Oh, I see. But I did hear you, Lars, say Maya's name and that was when I knew I would have to start talking at some point or another. And I wanna ask the both of you how you know her.”  
“I met her through my wife,” Lars begins, “and I discovered her writing that way, too.”  
“And I found her,” I follow up.  
“You found her?” Molly raises her eyebrows at that.  
“Found her—laying in a gutter in the pouring rain. Bound at the ankles and traumatized. I took her to shelter.”  
“Sweet merciful Jesus—” She closes her eyes and runs her fingers through her hair. “Did you call the police?”  
I swallow.  
“No.”  
“Good.”  
“Good?”  
“Yeah. That's a nightmare in and of itself, especially since they've been looking for her for months on end. But I'm glad you were there otherwise I would have lost her.”  
“What is… your relation to her?” Lars asks with caution.  
“I'm her stepmother. I adopted her after hearing about how she was this little British girl who came to America with her Norwegian parents but her parents couldn't take care of her for some reason and they gave her up, and she bounced around across the eastern seaboard side of the country. I took her home up to New York City with me, and then we moved to Boston because it was cheaper and I met a man who lived there.”  
“Which means Candace is her stepsister,” Lars adds.  
“Right, Candace is my daughter and one day she told me she wanted a sister but I was divorced at that point. So instead of rushing into a marriage, I found Maya dumpster diving here in New Orleans with some man from New York City and a little black Caribbean girl.”  
“Delphine,” I mutter aloud.  
“The dashing Delphine Dufresne,” says Lars.  
“After I adopted Maya and met the man who would eventually become my husband, we became our own little family, the Morlentes.” At least, I think that's how she spells it: she pronounces it “more-len-tee”. “He, my husband, Mike—Michael—was very close to both of them, especially since I got into the business of real estate, hence my ownership of this here building. I'm also from New Orleans so it only made sense to me to come back here and own a piece of my home city. Unbeknownst to me, though, I soon found out that with ownership comes travelling so I have to live here for some time to make sure everything is in place. Michael, meanwhile, was in the thriving business of the environmentally friendly. Since this was back in the Seventies, that was becoming a huge deal with all of the protections and whatnot, so he always came home with big fat checks.”  
“So it makes sense that the girls became—” He nods his head.  
“Daddy's girls, right. Well, Candace for the most part. Maya's a little more enigmatic and there's still a lot to her story I'm trying to figure out—”  
The kettle whistles and she ducks back into the kitchen to fetch us a pair of cups. Lars and I glance at one another again. I can't help but frown at all of this. I'm itching to know more.  
“Do either of you boys want sugar or honey in your tea?” she calls out.  
“Neither for me, thank you,” Lars replies.  
“I'll take a bit of sugar,” I answer.  
“Okay—”  
There's a soft clinking of a spoon inside of a mug, and then there's a brief pause. She returns to the room with a pair of off white mugs decorated with red and black spots all around with the tags hanging over the top edge. She hands the one in her right hand to me and the one in her left to Lars. I hold the mug above my lap in order to uncross my legs and switch sides.  
“Is there anything else you do know?” I ask her, as she sets her elbow back on top of the dresser.  
“I don't think I understand, son.”  
“When you returned home, did you notice anything about her at all?” Lars fills in for me. “Like anything different?”  
She sighs through her nose and rests her fingers against the front of the top drawer.  
“One time—she and Candace were both teenagers at this point, like she was thirteen and Candace was fifteen—I came home two different times, the first time for Thanksgiving and then again in February when there was also one of those big—big, big snowstorms that come in during this time of year up there—”  
“Nor'easter?” I fill in.  
“Nor'easter, that's it! Yeah, I flew up for Thanksgiving to see them again and Mike told me he got a raise at his job and so we all were treated that weekend. I went back down here for two months and then I came home again because of that big snowstorm and Mike told me he wanted me home so we could all be together. That storm lasted three days if I remember correctly. It may have been the cabin fever talking but she—Maya—was acting very strangely.”  
“How so?” Lars takes a sip of tea.  
“Well, when I first brought her home, she was incredibly chatty. Curious, open minded—kind of like how a little girl should be. She had that real cocky English accent, too. Just a sassy little girl.”  
“Kinda like how I was,” I declare, blowing on the top of the mug.  
“Really?” Her face lights up.  
“Yeah. My aunt says I was a sassy little boy.”  
“Did you write a lot?”  
“Played hockey.”  
“I see.” She flashes a wink at me and I take a sip of the tea: it's hot, and it's earthy even with the sugar mixed in, but I'll take it anyway. “She was more of a writer, like she was always writing stories and poems and things. She and Candace became inseparable friends even if they were only two years apart, and even as they entered high school. At some point, Candace and I both dropped the 'step-' prefix and we started referring to the two of them as merely sisters. So when I came home that day before the Nor'easter, I noticed she wasn't as spunky as she used to be. It was like someone flipped a switch on her. She started behaving like a moody teenager, locking herself up in her and Candace's bedroom for hours on end whereas Candace was in the front room with Mike and me, making sure we were alright and that there was a fire in the fireplace. On the second day of the storm, Maya stayed in her room all day, like Candace woke up to help with breakfast and she said Maya pretty much isolated herself in there all day long. Mike assured me it was cabin fever, but she kept up with the moodiness even during times I came home again.”  
“Huh. So something must have happened to her in those two months,” Lars concludes, taking a huge swig of his tea.  
“Yeah, because—from what I recall, she didn't act like that over Thanksgiving. She was laughing, and cracking jokes, and just having a fun, a little English girl enjoying herself in an American tradition. Neither Mike nor Candace know what happened either. They went to Christmas Mass and did all the prayer things they do over the holidays—I'm atheist, so I don't do that sort of thing. Candace said she was fine then. So no one knows what happened. It was like the hormones kicked in just out of the blue, but there was more to it, though. She wasn't really socializing with anyone. One time Candace told me during Sunday school their teacher asked Maya to come up to the desk to talk to her for a minute. She was given a note to meet up with one of their classmates at the church organ to help clean it. I think that might have had something to do with it because Maya read the note and it was phrased in a way that sounded like she and the classmate did something bad. They went to go clean the pipes and the other girl talks about how much of a drag it is to do that sort of thing and that's when Maya starts talking about being a trash diver.”  
“Do you remember who the girl was?” Lars asks her even though that whole stint of the story made my head spin.  
“I don't. But I do remember they clicked because she was a young deliquent herself but I can't remember what she did, though. Candace said she saw her at school, Sunday and regular otherwise. She always wore this little green sweater and they never saw her in the summer time.”  
Lars scowls at the whole thing while I'm drinking down my tea and trying to connect the dots here. I'm about ask her if she knows something about Maxwell Industries when I notice the arms of the chair have a grip on me. I take a final sip of tea before setting my hands on the arms in hopes to lift myself up, but it's useless.  
“I'm stuck,” I blurt out.  
“You're stuck?” Molly echoes.  
“Totally stuck. My ass is stuck in the chair.”  
“You're so thin, though! How'd you get stuck?”  
“He once got stuck in my silly putty couch,” Lars points out.  
“Not a good time for that, Lars!” I exclaim.  
“What do we do, though?”  
“Oh, dear…” Molly lays a hand on the side of her face. “…um, oh, I know!”  
She ducks back into the kitchen for something. I sit there with my ass stuck in the seat of the chair and I can tell Lars is stifling a laugh.  
“Welcome to my world, man,” he tells me with a shrug.  
“Yeah, but—you're not the one with a big butt, though.”  
I hear the refrigerator door close and Molly returns to the room with a Tupperware container.  
“These guys, when they're not going crazy from the humidity,” she begins, taking off the lid and taking out one of those black and yellow banana slugs, the same that got stuck to my fingers and wouldn't come off without Ellen running hot water over my hands, “are actually quite helpful in the same manner as dish soap when they're frozen.”  
She rolls the slug in her hands like she would a little roll of bread dough and then flattens it with the palms of her hands. She molds it like she would with a bit of clay and then she slips in between the side of my thigh and the arm of the chair.  
“Okay, now stand up.”  
I glance down at the little black and yellow flat pancake jammed between me and the chair, but I have to take her word for it. I lift myself up and I slip out of the seat of the chair. I glance down at my hip and find nothing there. No slime, no ooze, nothing. Just plain fabric. But I rub my hips because it hurts a bit.  
“Interesting isn't it?” she points out to us as she scoops up the slug from the seat of the chair and puts it back into the container using two fingers. “When they're frozen, they get slippery like soap. Someone downstairs discovered that when they started coming in and we had a deep freeze one morning. They're still alive but they get slick.”  
I keep my hands pressed to the sides of my hips. I know more about Maya but I still have that lingering concern about my best friend, though.  
“Do you anything at all about—Maxwell Industries?” I ask her.  
“Other than they were that big Seattle based company that blew through here faster than Maureen did? I don't.”  
She glances over at the clock on her dresser and gasps.  
“Oh! I've gotta run, boys.” She picks up the container and hurries back to the kitchen to put it back in the freezer.  
“Thank you for the tea,” Lars tells her, climbing to his feet.  
“Yeah, thank you.”  
“It's what I can do for the both of you,” she assures us, brushing past me to the closet for her yellow slicker. We dodge out of the apartment and she follows us, closing the door and locking it behind her. She bustles past us to the stairwell and runs downstairs. Lars and I are left alone there in the third floor hallway. He faces me with a heavy sigh.  
“So what do we do now?” I ask him.  
“Back to New York, I guess?” he suggests, glancing down at his wrist. “It's only nine thirty.”  
“Yeah, might as well. We can get breakfast.”  
“We can so get breakfast!”


	42. ("joey's got a big butt and you can't lie")

November 6, 1988. Rochester, New York.  
Lars and I land on our asses on the moist cold sidewalk outside of Sew Into You, the upholstery shop. I sit there for a minute, looking up at the bits of snow still tacked onto the outside of the glass, and I see the lights are on inside. There's a big clump of snow hanging off of the gutter over our heads, but I look closer to find it's more over him. Lars rubs his forehead while he's keeping both eyes closed.  
I scramble onto my feet and then grip onto his wrists in order to better help him up off the ground. I yank him off the concrete and he lunges up against my body right as the snow splats right onto the spot on the sidewalk behind him. The clump was larger than I thought, about the size of a basketball. He turns to look at me with his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide with concern.  
“That was close,” I remark.  
“Fuck yeah, it was,” he adds. He pats my shoulder and sidesteps around me to the door of the shop. He enters first, followed by me. Sonia strides up to us wearing a fitted purple sweater, streamlined black slacks, and black Chuck Taylors. Her hair is wet and I know she and Marcia just clocked in for the day.  
“Hey,” she greets us, “Marsh and I were just wondering about the two of you.”  
“We were just—er—” Lars clears his throat and gestures back to me. “—discussing breakfast.”  
“Well, she and I just got here, so—we can't really do it as of yet. But we'll be available for lunch, though.” She flashes the two of us a little smirk.  
“Sonia, where are the—” Marcia emerges from behind the thread with a pair of wire coat hangers in one hand. Her face lights up when she sees us.  
“Hey, you two!” She hurries over to the two of us and halts right in front of me with a big beaming smile on her face. “Joey.”  
“Miss Marcia,” I greet her, feeling the muscles in my stomach retract. My hips are still aching from the tight chair, such that I don't even realize I'm rubbing the side of my left one with my hand.  
“You okay?” Sonia asks me.  
“He got stuck in a chair,” Lars promptly answers.  
“He got stuck in a chair?” she repeats, folding her arms over her chest. “Joey?”  
“He's a string bean, though,” Marcia declares.  
“I've got a little in the back here, though,” I point out, laying my hands over the seat of my pants.  
“Heh, Joey's actually got a big butt,” Sonia cracks.  
“Well, I won't deny it,” I admit to her.  
“Joey's got a big butt and you can't lie about it, either,” she continues, laughing to herself.  
“Never seen you in that scarf before,” Marcia remarks. I unbutton my jacket to let loose given I'm inside now. “Or that shirt.”  
“Eh, something different. I need a wardrobe update.”  
They glance at each other.  
“What have I done.”  
“You just opened a can of shit, my Indian Italian friend,” Lars tells me.  
“I've got just the right thing for our little full figured boy here,” Sonia announces, gesturing for me to follow her to the checkerboard section. There's a box on the floor before a few spools of black and light blue checkered fabric; she crouches down in order to better delve through it. Within time, she hands me a little button up shirt and what I think are trousers.  
“Marcia made this for her boyfriend a while back, and then they broke up. They were gonna come to one of my plays last spring wearing matching checkerboard outfits.”  
“Wow.” I want to laugh at that, but for all I know, she might be right behind me.  
“It's not much, but it's to help out a little bit.” She hands me the clothes.  
“Thank you. Doesn't look like there's a dressing room here, though.”  
“Nah. You can use the little dining area, though. Close enough.”  
I thank her again before heading to the room off to the side and ducking around the corner. I strip off my coat and my scarf, and lay both on the table. I take off my shirt and pick up the checkerboard shirt, only to find it's a button up. I'm unfastening the buttons when I hear boots squeaking on the floor behind me. I turn to see Lars entering the room with some checkerboard fabric over his forearm.  
“What'cha got there?” I ask him.  
“Sonia gave this to me. Did she tell you—”  
“Marcia and her old boyfriend and their matching outfits? Yes.”  
“That must be his. According to her, this was Marcia's.”  
I slip on the shirt and fasten the buttons: it's a little short over my waist. A little too short in fact: I can feel my belly button's almost exposed. I don't really want to take off my boots and then my pants to put the bottoms on, but I've got the shirt on, though.  
“This must be from before Marcia gained a bunch of weight—”  
I look over at Lars and the buttons on his shirt hugging his body.  
“Jeez,” I say.  
“Got a little peek-a-boo, I see there.”  
“Eh, it's my stomach. Whaddya want.”  
I hear Sonia and Marcia outside of the room coming our way.  
“How we doing in here?” Sonia asks us. They both poke their heads in and I swear hearts pop into their eyes.  
“Sexy,” Sonia remarks. “Both of you.”  
“You're not just saying that are you, Sonia?” Lars asks her as she steps into the room all the way.  
“Not at all. I really mean that. You guys look really sexy in those. Usually a couple of guys wearing those would look like complete dorks but damn. You guys are studs.”  
“Especially Joey with his belly peeking out a little bit,” Marcia squeaks with her fingers pressed to her lips.  
“Ooh, yeah. I almost wanna reach under his shirt and tickle his tummy, Marsh.”  
“You guys aren't gonna put on the pants?”  
“We don't really wanna take our boots off or get snow all over them,” Lars explains.  
“Oh, I see. By the way, Sonia and I were talking—we're not sure if we can do it again today, but the two of us would like to do lunch again.” She flashes a wink at me and I kind of wish the shirt was a little longer.  
“Sooner rather than later, boys,” Sonia adds with a toss of her hair.  
“Sounds good by me,” I reply to them.  
“Me, too,” Lars adds.  
“Alright. We'll let you two fellas get dressed.”  
They double back out of the room and that's when I let out a low whistle.  
“Marcia?” Lars asks with a chuckle.  
“Yeah. I wanna tell her I just—I just—”  
“Don't sweat it, man. She's been like that since she and her boyfriend broke up. Don't take it personally.”  
I unbutton the shirt, strip it off, and put my sweatshirt back on. As I'm putting my coat back on and tying my scarf back on, I'm thinking about Maya. I wonder if she's alright, given we haven't seen her. And I haven't seen her since that apparition over the hockey rink last week. I have a lot more questions now after our visit to Molly's place. Once Lars is dressed, we pick up the clothes and head on back out. Marcia and Sonia headed into the back room which allows us to go outside uninterrupted.  
I also think of Brick. I wonder how he's doing since I hadn't seen him in two days. I wonder if he's okay.  
We're outside of the shop in the cold but clear morning. I take in a deep breath of fresh air coming in from the lake.  
“Good morning, my darling,” I greet the stretch of blue beyond the buildings across the street.  
“I say we head on over to Snarky's,” Lars suggests, and right then, I feel a rumble inside of my stomach.  
“That's way the hell over in Syracuse, though,” I point out. “My gut's starting to scream at me, too.”  
Lars stands there with his hands pressed to his hips and staring off to the side to the wet pavement, and the high piles of wet white snow pushed off to the side. I follow his gaze to across the street and beyond the buildings, to the surface of the lake. Given it's broad daylight, we can't see the neon lights over there anymore. But the wispy white clouds floating off of the lake give me a cold chill. I think back to what Molly said about Maya and how she had flipped a switch for no reason. There has to be a reason. There is more to this mystery than I think. But I have to take care of two things, though: feeding myself and Lars, and something else.  
“There's also one thing I have to sort out, though,” I tell him, reaching down my scarf and my shirt for the arrowhead pendant. “Back home in Oswego.”  
“Then again… I've gotta go back there to get my car, anyways…”


	43. (boston cream pies and feathers)

November 6, 1988. Oswego, New York.  
“Where are we?” Lars asks me in a muffled voice.  
“Right here.”  
I turn my head and I can tell we’re back at Black Orchid, even with the coat of freshly fallen snow all around us. I recognize that door, and I raise my knuckles to the panel. There’s silence. Then it swings open to reveal Mrs. Hamilton wrapped in black lace and leather and smelling of rose water. Her face lights up when she sees us.  
“There are my boys!” she declares. “Morgan and I were just wondering about you—come on in!”  
We step inside the place where we’re met with a blanket of warmth and a kiss from Morgan.  
“You guys need to take care of yourselves better,” she advises us, brushing off the front of my coat. “Come on, take a load off.”  
“I do not like the way you looked at me when you said that,” I confess, and she bursts out laughing at me.  
“Also there’s someone waiting for you on the second level, Joey,” Mrs. Hamilton nods up the stairs on the other side of the room.  
“Who?”  
“Go check it out. We’ll take care of your clothes for you guys, make sure nothing happens to them.”  
She and Morgan offer to take the checkerboard outfits Marcia and Sonia gave us, and then Lars follows them towards the kitchen. I make my way to the stairwell and up to the second floor, where I'm met with the warm aroma of chocolate coupled with fresh baked bread. Cindy and Lupe are seated at the little table before the stage with a quartet of Boston cream pies, each of them the size of my palms, each of them glazed with a thick layer of chocolate: the former has her hair brushed over the side of her shoulder and embedded with tiny specks of silver glitter throughout, and is wearing a little low cut black dress lined with lace; the latter has her hair tousled all around her head, is sporting those hoop earrings, and a little black leather jacket. Cindy adjusts the neckline of her dress right as I walk up to them.  
“There he is!” she greets me, and gestures to the chair in between them. “Have a seat.”  
I round the table to the chair and nestle down in between them. Cindy pushes one of the pies in front of me and Lupe leans over my shoulder. I turn my head to look at her little chin resting upon the point of my shoulder and her dark eyes staring back at me.  
“Hello, lovely,” I greet her in a low voice, feeling the butterflies flutter up inside my stomach.  
“Sexy boy,” she whispers to me. Cindy picks up a fork and sticks it into the side of the pie, and holds the bite right before my mouth.  
“Eat up, Mr. Stallion,” she commands to me and I open my lips for the bite. Light and fluffy with the chocolate and the crème. Perfect. I swallow and she gives me another bite. Lupe, meanwhile, runs her fingers over my chest.  
“Ladies, please,” I insist, putting my hands up as if to resist them.  
“Oh, come on, baby boy,” Lupe says to me in a breathy voice, stroking my chest.  
“Yeah, you know you want some of this,” Cindy adds, gesturing to the pie in front of me. “A couple of girls who'll take off their clothes for you and some decadent cake to go with it.”  
“Not really what I was expecting for breakfast, but I will take it, though.” I open my mouth for another bite of Boston crème pie which is then followed by Lupe laying her hand on the right side of my face for a kiss on the left. Cindy then puts down the fork to do the same for the right side. I've got a mouthful of cake and two girls kissing me at the same time. Ha!  
“Please—” I beg in between their kisses.  
“Admit it, there's no way you can resist this,” Cindy whispers in my ear.  
“The only thing that would make this whole thing better is if Gwendolyn was here dancing for us,” I confess.  
“My darling sister has a little touch of the flu, I'm afraid,” she admits, bringing her lips closer to the underside of my jaw. “But I've got you covered, big boy—”  
She kisses my neck and that's when I feel my jeans tightening. I'm growing in between the legs at the touch of every kiss from both Cindy and Lupe. I shift my weight to get comfortable again but he's only enlarging. Lupe touches my chest with a caress as light as a feather.  
But there's a part of me resisting this. There's that cake right in front of me. I lunge forward to the fork for another bite for myself, but Lupe grips onto my wrist.  
“I want—” I plead, groping at the plate of Boston cream pie. “I want—I want—!”  
Lars emerges from behind the stairs with a smarmy grin on his face.  
“Ooh, free cake!” he exclaims, oblivious to the fact I'm being groped at myself.  
“Help me,” I beg of him.  
“Oh, come off it, man—look at you! You fucking—STUD!”  
“He wants the cake, though, Cindy,” Lupe tells her.  
“Definitely. I don't blame him, either—it's quite delicious.”  
“Come back any time, though, baby—” Lupe whispers into my ear before kissing my neck again. Cindy licks her lips at me before they both stand up. Lars takes Lupe's seat next to me once they step away; I sink down in the chair with the fork in my hand.  
“God damn,” I mutter to myself.  
“I'll say,” he adds, taking a bite out of his little cake. “They were all over you.”  
“I like the way Lupe was touching me,” I confess, inserting the tines of my fork into the cake for another bite, “—you know, down my chest and all along on my neck. She really knows how to please, that one.”  
“She's the youngest, too.”  
“Right. It's like it's natural for her. And I'm not the kind of guy who'll have at it with just anyone, either.” I think about my encounter with Dominique in her and Matt's house. She isn't just anyone, and neither are Lupe or Gwendolyn for that matter.  
“So how do you want to get back to your place?” he asks me. “I don't feel like opening yet another wormhole, especially after Molly overheard us last night.”  
“And it also just seems like overkill, too, y'know? 'Cause I live nearby.”  
“Right!”  
I take the bite of cake and then swallow it down.  
“There is the bus stop up by the country club over here, though,” I point out.  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. I took it over here on the night before my birthday and that was legitimately how I found Maya. I just happened to be there.”  
Lars gapes at me with the tines of the fork pressed to his bottom lip. “Shit, man. Why didn't you add that to your story before?”  
“Didn't even think about it 'til just now.”  
“Fock man, that explains everything. What time does the next one come?”  
“What time is it?”  
He glances at his wrist again.  
“A quarter to ten.”  
“Shit, we gotta go.”  
“Oh, snap—I wonder if we can take these with us.”  
“I'm sure we can.”  
We pick up our cakes and hurry back down the stairs to the first floor. Mrs. Hamilton, Morgan, Cindy, and Lupe are in the next room talking about something as we're headed out the front door. I'm eating the cake with my fingers as we're walking at a rather fast clip down the sidewalk towards the bus stop. The clouds are funneling in from the lake and the winds are picking up: as long as it doesn't snow again, we'll make the bus on time. I lead Lars to the corner and to the left of us, across from the actual bus stop itself, stands the storm drain, now filled with a low snow pile. I stuff the remainder of the cake into my mouth and point at the drain.  
“This is where I found her,” I tell him with my mouth full.  
“Holy shit,” he breathes out, taking another bite of cake. I guide him across the street to the stop, and within a couple of minutes, the bus lumbers up to the curb to take us back to my neighborhood. Upon climbing aboard and taking a seat next to the window on the left side, I peer over my shoulder to look at Black Orchid again, and the Denny's sign, and beyond that stood the stadium lights lining the hockey rink. I guess I'm just an idiot but it's clear to me now in broad daylight.  
It takes us twenty minutes to return back to the stop a few blocks from the complex, and once we're off, I guide Lars away from the bus stop and hold up a finger at him.  
“I have to take care of one other thing, though,” I explain to him.  
Glancing both ways, I lead him across the street, exactly back the way I first came to Black Orchid, back to my place. But we don't return to my place: I keep walking up the block, up towards the House of Grey. Snow blankets their roof and I see the lamp in the front window switched on. Good, they're home. Lars is right behind me as we stride up to the front door. Before I can knock, it swings open and Billy pokes his head out. There's a look of concern upon his face.  
“Hey,” I greet him.  
“We're glad you got here,” he says to me.  
“Why's that? What's up?”  
“It's Brick.”  
I think it might be the wind, but a cold chill runs up my spine just now. I glimpse back at Lars, whose eyes are wide with concern.  
Billy lets us inside. The house is warm, and Barney and Spence are seated at the table, looking as though they've been waiting for me. I turn my head to the living room and the couch where they had laid him down. He looks normal, like the Brick I've known for years, but there's something off about him.  
His eyes look as though they're made of clay.  
He's got feathers, feathers like the ones I put on my mask for Halloween and the ones I have in the old headdress, decorating his face, the crown of his head, and all down his shoulders and his chest. But I'm coming closer to find the feathers don't even look real. The stems look as though they're made of wires, like the tiny white wires I saw up in Seattle holding the electronics together, while the plumes are made of this weird glossy blue stuff: they're jutting out of his skin like they're part of his body. Lars gasps right behind me.  
That Boston cream pie isn't settling with me now.  
“What the—What the honest to God fuck,” is all I can stammer out.  
“He's still alive by the way,” Spence assures us. “Like he's breathing and he makes these weird little whimpering noises every so often, but he hasn't moved.”  
“We turned the lights out a little bit ago and they glow in the dark,” Barney adds.  
“When did—this happen?” Lars stammers.  
“Like right after you left,” Barney replies. “They just sprouted out of nowhere as Bill was making us breakfast.”  
“Did you take him to the hospital here in town?” I ask them.  
“Yeah,” Billy assures me. “They're baffled. They don't know what it is.”  
I return to Brick and those feathers in his skin, which is now as pale white as a ghost. He has that exact same look on his face that Maya had just before she transformed into that dragon monster thing. He looks like Maya when I found her, worse than her in fact.  
“We don’t know what’s wrong with him, Joey,” Spence confesses in a soft voice. I hear Lars step away from me and into the kitchen to join them. But I'm still standing there, staring at his face and those itchy looking feathers growing out of him. I hope he doesn't turn into a monster or worse. I'll save you, buddy. You’re my best friend. You and I go back years, to when we played hockey together in the back yard. I can’t lose you.  
And I’ll save Maya, too. I'll have to save her first if I must.  
I’ll figure this one out, even if it kills me.


End file.
